THE  TREE  OF 
KNOWLEDGE 


A  DOCUMENT  BY 

A  WOMAN 


i    i 


NEW  YORK 

THE    STUYVESANT   PRESS 

1008 


COPYRIGHT,  1908,  BY 

THE   STUYVESANT   PRESS 

NEW  YORK 


CONTENTS 

FIRST  PART 


PAGH 

DRESDEN 3 

LONDON 24 

CHHISTIANIA 41 

STOCKHOLM 48 

ST.  PETERSBURG 56 

Moscow 62 

PARIS 71 

LONDON 80 

MONTE  CARLO 97 

SECOND  PART 

THE  VOYAGE — 

FIRST  DAY 117 

SECOND  DAY 121 

THIRD  DAY 128 

FOURTH  DAY 133 

FIFTH  DAY 139 

SIXTH  DAY 144 

SEVENTH  DAY 152 

LAST  DAY 160 

V 


2139044 


CONTENTS 

THIRD  PART 

FAGH 

LITTLE  HUNGARY 171 

THE  HOUSE 180 

NEW  JERSEY 195 

THE  HOUSE 200 

NEW  JERSEY 216 

NEW  YORK 229 

LONDON 238 

BUCKINGHAM  GATE 250 

MONTE  CARLO 258 

CAIRO 281 

SCHEVENINGEN 290 

LONDON  .  .  299 


VI 


FIRST  PART 
DRESDEN 


The  Tree  of  Knowledge 

DRESDEN 

February. — To-morrow  I  am  going  to 
Gericke.  I  have  given  my  beauty  and  my 
blood  to  this  art,  to  its  terror,  its  rapture, 
its  despair.  I  have  given  my  humanity: 
more  I  cannot  give.  If  it  will  not  make 
the  return  of  one  imperishable  harmony, 
I  must  strike  fire  from  life  in  other  ways. 
The  darkness  is  near  us  all,  the  nothing- 
ness, the  unspeakable  Woe.  But  here  is, 
in  the  meantime,  a  world  of  golden  light 
and  white  winds  and  my  youth — my  youth 
which  must  be  fed  of  all  things  precious, 
here  and  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  To- 
morrow I  am  going  to  Gericke.  He  has 
all  my  MSS.,  all  the  music  wrung  from 
3 


,THE    .TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

my  dreams — the  score  for  the  Maeterlinck 
plays,  the  Heine  sequence,  the  setting  for 
the  Whitman  Song  of  Death.  And  Ge- 
ricke  will  not  spare  me  the  truth — what- 
ever it  be.  ... 

To-day,  in  the  garden  by  the  river,  a 
faint  and  delicate  wafture  of  Spring 
floated  in  the  air;  a  gorgeous  sun  set  over 
the  pinnacles  of  the  ancient  city  and  a 
single,  black  swallow  wheeled  in  the  eve- 
ning sky.  I  let  Egon  hold  my  hand.  He 
looked  delightful  in  his  uniform — boyish 
and  yet  dignified.  He  took  off  his  helmet 
for  a  moment  and  the  wind  touched  his 
silken,  yellow  hair  like  the  hair  of  a  child. 
He  took  it  into  his  head  that  I  was  think- 
ing of  him  and  said  so.  I  laughed. 

"There  are  so  many  other  things,  Lieu- 
tenant von  Helmuth." 

Poor  boy !  Tears  came  into  his  earnest, 
German  eyes. 

"I  thought  you  cared.  .  .  ." 
I 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

That  was  too  much  at  an  hour  when 
the  grey  Fates  were  weaving  so  gravely 
at  my  thread  of  life.  Suppose  Gericke 
says:  "Very  clever,  very  good  for  a 
woman,  but  it  can't  live!" 

I  turned  on  my  gold  and  white  youth. 

"Care?  And  become  Frau  Lieutenant 
von  Helmuth  in  a  garrison  on  the  Russian 
frontier?  I  must  have  life,  lieber  Junge, 
complete  life.  I  must  know  every  splen- 
dour— the  flashing  of  jewels  and  the  glint 
of  marble,  music  and  the  fragrance  of 
infinite  flowers,  the  enamelled  brilliance  of 
perfect  day  and  nights  of  the  fulfilment 
of  all  desire.  Unless  .  .  ." 

"Unless?"  he  echoed. 

"Nothing!"  I  said,  sharply.  "Go  home 
and  study  the  art  of  war  and  think  of 
your  little  cousin  in  Magdeburg.  She 
will  help  to  continue  the  von  Helmuth 
race — competently. ' ' 

He  went  off  with  steps  that  dragged  a 
5 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

little.  But  what  is  one  to  do?  If  I  loved 
him  I  should  put  a  thousand  miles  be- 
tween us.  I  cannot  afford  to  love  Egon. 
Art  has  taught  me  the  secrets  of  the  pas- 
sions in  storm  or  in  tense  quietude  more 
than  life,  by  which  I  am  unsullied,  could 
have  done.  It  gives  me  a  vision  of  an  am- 
ber strand  under  an  infinitely  blue  sky 
and  the  white  surges  thundering  at  my 
feet.  There  Egon  should  bare  his  head 
and  the  wind  should  play  with  his  silken, 
childlike  hair;  he  should  put  his  arms 
around  me — his  white,  strong,  cool  arms. 
.  .  .  And  at  the  end  of  a  few  weeks  I 
should  awake,  having  given  away  my  one 
pearl  beyond  price  (if  Art  should  fail), 
and  be  as  far  as  now  from  the  visible 
glory  of  life.  If  Art  should  not  fail,  I 
may  yet  go  to  that  glittering  shore  and 
play  with  bright  shells  and  let  Egon  kiss 
my  eyes  that  the  sun  has  dazzled.  .  .  . 
Otherwise  a  battle,  not  of  caresses,  awaits 
6 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

me.  I  have  no  money  and  I  need  all  in 
my  life  that  money  can  buy.  A  heart- 
less cosmic  process  flings  me  upon  this 
pitiful,  brief  shore  of  life,  gives  me  a  pas- 
sion for  all  visible  glory  and  delight,  a 
passion  strong  as  the  storm  and  as  merci- 
less to  others  and  myself.  The  Tables  of 
the  Law  are  broken:  the  Gods  are  dead. 
Why  should  I  hesitate  to  build  my  Vision- 
ary Palace  which  is  also  the  Palace  of 
Life?  It  must  have  pillars  of  jade  and 
lapis-lazuli ;  golden  sphinxes  with  topaz 
eyes;  the  looms  of  the  ancient  East  must 
cover  its  shining  floor.  Slaves  upon  bend- 
ed knees  must  bring  me  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  I  must  cast  the  priceless,  jew- 
elled goblets  into  the  blue  sea  that  lies 
below.  The  Visionary  Palace  costs 
money,  and  the  Tablets  of  the  Law  are 
broken,  the  Gods  are  dead. 

Gericke  looked  at  me  with  his  cold,  pas- 

7 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

sionless  eyes.  I  have  never  seen  fire  in 
those  eyes  except  when  he  conducts:  dur- 
ing the  Vorspiel  to  Parsifal  they  smoul- 
der, during  the  Liebestod  they  flare.  To- 
day they  were  as  dull  as  two  smooth  peb- 
bles abraded  by  the  currents  of  geologic 
ages.  He  looked  at  me  for  a  long  time 
in  silence,  so  long  that  my  breath  threat- 
ened to  give  out.  .Then  his  heavy  lips 
moved. 

"Also,  you  wish  to  know     .     .     ." 

"What  the  work  is  worth,  not  from  any 
two-penny  point  of  view.  Don't  tell  me 
it's  earnest,  commendable,  talented.  I  can- 
not afford  to  give  my  life  for  anything  less 
than  immortality." 

He  threw  back  his  great,  ugly  head  and 
laughed  for  the  first  time  in  my  experience 
—a  brutal  and  elemental  laugh.  I  got  up 
and  felt  a  curious  chill  creep,  snake-like, 
up  my  spine. 

"I  have  my  answer  ..."  I  said  weakly. 
8 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

His  laughter  yielded  to  a  grey,  weary 
smile  as  he  leaned  forward. 

"Sit  down,"  he  commanded  sharply. 
"Your  work  is — earnest — commendable — 
talented."  He  rasped  out  the  words  in 
hard,  staccato  fashion.  "You  have  worked 
• — admirably,  with  a  whole  heart.  Any 
other  pupil  of  mine  would  give  years  of 
life  for  such  words  from  me." 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders,  but  the  knife 
was  going  into  my  marrow. 

"What  is  the  use  of  talking,  Herr  Pro- 
fessor? You  have  pronounced  judgment 
upon  me." 

He  leaned  closer  to  me  until  his  head 
nearly  touched  mine;  the  dull,  greyish 
eyes  seemed  to  weigh  upon  my  heart. 

"I  am  fifty,"  he  said  slowly.  "I  have 
worked  all  my  life  like  a  galley-slave.  My 
works — du  lieber  Gott — they  won't  live. 
Nobody  knows  it  better  than  I.  But  if 
the  thing  were  to  do  over  again,  I'd  do  the 
9 


,THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

same.  That  is  love  for  one's  art.  As  for 
you,  your  dirty  egotism  would  rot  your 
genius  if  you  had  it." 

"But  I  haven't." 

"No.     .     .     " 

All  that  happened  no  longer  ago  than 
this  morning,  and  yet  the  thing  seems  in- 
credibly distant — ages  and  lives  away.  I 
know  now  what  agony  is,  a  personal,  hu- 
man agony  that  belongs  to  me — not  the 
despair  of  Isolde  transfigured  in  those 
waves  of  delirious  harmony,  not  the  sad- 
ness, intolerably  exquisite  and  poignant, 
of  Melisande,  but  a  grey,  corroding  agony 
lived  through  by  the  light  of  my  familiar 
lamp.  I  must  kill  it,  throttle  it,  I  must 
not  let  it  lay  its  hand  upon  me  and  carve 
its  marks  upon  my  face.  There  is  still 
life,  life.  .  .  . 

This  afternoon  when  the  sun  was  at 
its  height  and  streamed  into  my  windows 
I  let  down  the  velvet  curtains  and  my 
10 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

chamber  lay  in  a  soft  gloom.  I  lit  two 
candles  on  my  dressing-table  and  then 
tossed  my  garments  one  by  one  upon  the 
bed.  The  long  mirror  reflected  the  tall, 
white,  perfect  image  against  a  back- 
ground of  the  silken  waves  of  dark  hair. 
I  saw  a  more  triumphant  loveliness  than 
dwells  in  any  music  I  could  have  dreamed 
or  written.  I  saw  that  for  which  men  from 
of  old  have  battled  against  tall  towers  and 
citadels,  for  which  they  have  crushed  the 
bones  of  the  ancient  Earth,  their  mother, 
for  which  they  have  striven  arid  despaired 
and  died.  That  which  could  burn  the 
"topless  towers  of  Ilion"  can  conquer  for 
me  a  few  glittering  years,  can  break  for 
me  the  barriers  of  a  perverse  and  bour- 
geois society,  can  keep  me  from  its  judg- 
ment and  its  penalties.  .  .  The  agony 
weakens,  the  dreams  of  art  fade.  I  have 
dwelt  under  the  skies  of  Veronese  and 
have  laughed  with  fauns  and  satyrs  in 
11 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Boecklin's  cypress  islands.  The  sym- 
phonies of  Brahms  have  loved  me,  the  pas- 
sion of  Schumann  has  clamoured  in  my 
blood.  I  have  walked  upon  aerial  heights 
with  Zarathustra,  and  shuddered  with 
Aglavaine  and  Tintagiles  upon  the 
marge  of  leaden  meres  and  windless  for- 
ests. All  that  is  over.  I  shall  give  a  ban- 
quet in  memory  of  my  Ambitions  and  my 
Brains.  I  must  fasten  myself  upon  life 
and  draw  from  it  the  breath  of  its  utter- 
most ecstasy,  and  I  must  pay  no  price. 
For  Art  I  have  paid  this  agony  and  the 
memory  of  it  will  make  me  warier  forever. 
I  have  made  my  choice.  To-morrow  I 
shall  go  over  the  old  ground  once  more. 
Then,  as  my  drastic  Germans  say: 
"Schwamm  druber!" 

As  soon  as  Egon  received  the  invitation 
to  my  banquet,  he  came.     I  lay  on  the 
chaise-longue  and  watched  him  with  cold 
12 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

interest  now,  the  choice  being  made.  His 
face  was  curiously  white;  the  skin  about 
his  eyes  was  drawn;  his  movements  were 
quiveringly  nervous;  his  language  had 
that  precision  which  I  have  noticed  in 
other  high-bred  Germans  under  an  emo- 
tional stress.  He  looked  straight  at  me. 

"I  will  lay  down  my  commission.  I  am 
an  engineer  and  could  command  a  posi- 
tion the — ah — emoluments  of  which  would 
be  considerable." 

"And  wouldn't  all  the  dead  von  Hel- 
muths  turn  in  their  graves?" 

The  blood  surged  into  my  little  soldier's 
face. 

"I  will  forget  even  that — for  you." 

I  let  the  sleeve  of  my  silk  dressing-gown 
slip  from  my  shoulder. 

"Your  sacrifice  would  be  quite  wasted." 

"Perhaps  not  entirely,"  he  replied  with 
a  pained  frown.  "You  will  forgive  me 
for  saying  that  I  seem  to  discern  in  you 
13 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

possibilities  that  are  terrible,  possibilities 
from  which  my  whole  being  recoils.  No 
price  would  be  too  great  to  save  you  from 
these,  to  turn  you  safely  into  the  haven  of 
my  love." 

I  wouldn't  have  credited  my  little  lieu- 
tenant with  so  fine  a  perception. 

"And  those  possibilities  are?"  I  asked 
softly. 

He  turned,  if  possible,  a  trifle  whiter. 

"Since  we  understand  each  other,  what 
is  the  use  of  going  into  disagreeable  de- 
tails? I  am  ready  to  give  up  for  your  sake 
my  career,  my  family,  my  whole  life." 

I  felt  brutal  because  life  had  hurt  me 
recently  and  I  answered: 

"It's  not  enough." 

"Is  that  your  last  word?" 

"My  last  word." 

He  got  up,  bowed  low,  clicked  his  heels 
together  in  military  fashion  and  started 
to  walk  toward  the  door. 
14 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

"Egon,"  I  called. 
He  turned. 

"Gnddiges  Frdulein  befehlen?" 
"Will  you  not  say  good-bye?" 
He   hesitated,    crimsoned    and    turned 
back.    He  bent  down  on  one  knee  beside 
me  and  kissed  my  hand.    Then  he  sprang 
up  and  went  without  a  word. 

So  I  have  made  a  second  choice.  In 
the  eyes  of  the  world  a  very  foolish  one, 
no  doubt.  Did  I  make  the  choice  after  all, 
I  who  sit  here  ?  Was  it  not  made  for  me  ? 
One  does  what  one  can.  I  was  in  the 
blind,  dumb  slime  that  quivered  into  life 
far  back  in  the  elemental  ages  upon  that 
one  miraculous  day  in  Eternity;  I  was  in 
the  ungainly  dragons  of  the  primaeval 
mud ;  I  was  in  the  tooth  and  claw,  the  loin 
and  lip  of  the  caveman,  and  in  a  thousand 
thousand  of  my  ancestors  thereafter.  I 
was  inherent  in  all  these.  Through  all 
these  the  monstrous  universe  shaped  me  to 
15 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  being  that  I  am,  the  being  who  made 
this  choice,  the  being  who  (to  descend  from 
the  cosmic  to  the  parochial)  could  not  be 
Frau  Egon  von  Helmuth,  a  pillar  of  the 
Prussian  aristocracy  on  twenty  thousand 
marks  a  year,  a  brewer  of  coffee,  a  darner 
of  socks,  a  mother  of  blond  babies.  After 
the  storms  of  music,  after  the  surging 
waves  of  all  emotion,  I  must  have  more 
than  that.  Beethoven  has  fortified  my 
soul,  Wagner  has  sharpened  my  subtlest 
nerves,  Tschaikovsky  has  taught  me  a 
yearning  wistfulness  for  all  fragile  and 
exquisite  things  under  the  stars.  My 
beautiful,  dear  desires  clamour  for  fulfil- 
ment, if  indeed  the  world  hold  the  joy  and 
glamour  of  their  quest.  The  stupid  laws 
of  stupid  people  must  be  burned  away. 
My  one  law  is — not  to  be  found  out,  not 
to  sacrifice  one  perfect  golden  dream  of 
flesh  or  marble,  one  great  action  or  passion 
in  the  supreme  Art  of  Life,  one  purple 
16 


THE    -TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

hour  of  liquid  stars  and  yearning  winds, 
one  sigh,  one  word,  one  gesture,  to  the  de- 
crepit mandates  of  the  emasculate.  .  . 

I  search  my  soul  in  vain  for  any  sign  of 
fear,  any  presentiment  of  defeat.  Rather 
do  I  feel  an  exhilaration  as  of  new  wine. 
My  heart  burns  with  the  presages  of 
triumph  after  triumph.  I  have  a  vision 
of  myself  shod  in  sandals  of  silver  no 
whiter  than  my  feet,  folded  in  veils  of  silk 
set  with  the  pearls  of  half  an  Orient,  hold- 
ing in  the  leash  of  my  loveliness  the  power 
and  wisdom  of  the  earth. 

I  had  them  all  down  at  the  Hotel  Belle- 
vue  to  dinner  last  night.  Gericke  didn't 
come,  nor  did  Egon.  I  was  rather  glad 
not  to  have  the  boy's  emotional  death's 
head  at  my  feast.  Those  who  came  were 
merry,  and  later — moved.  Otto  Saar  made 
quite  an  affecting  speech  on  the  loss  sus- 
tained by  the  art  of  music  through  my 
17 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

abandonment  of  it.  Heigho!  We  had 
champagne  and  roses  and  at  two  in  the 
morning  the  girls  became  indiscreet.  Lit- 
tle Therese  danced  on  the  table  with  gold 
bracelets  around  her  tiny  ankles,  and 
when  the  laughter  trailed  off  some  im- 
becile grew  pathetic  and  sang  in  a  high, 
half-sobbing  tenor  voice,  "Stell  auf  den 
Tisch  die  duftenden  Reseden"  sang  it  to 
the  bitter  end  and  broke  down  at  the 
nerve-grinding  pathos  of  the  closing 
words:  "Wie  einst  im  Mai." 

Then  they  went  and  they  were  all  so 
tipsy  that  they  didn't  notice  my  staying 
behind  at  the  last  moment.  But  I  wanted 
to  see  the  hall  with  the  lights  still  bright 
and  the  glasses  overturned  and  the  in- 
numerable soiled  petals,  like  drops  of 
blood,  on  the  table  and  the  chairs  and  the 
floor.  My  God,  it  was  ghastly!  The 
broken  meats  were  noisome,  the  blue 
cigarette  smoke  had  a  stale,  acrid  stench. 
18 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  ghost  of  pleasure  was  more  joyless 
and  hideous  than  any  sorrow  could  have 
been.  It  taught  me  how  I  shall  have  to 
fight  for  the  joy  of  life  in  a  world  dedi- 
cated by  its  very  nature  to  sorrow. 

The  night  air  cooled  these  clumsy,  sen- 
timental fancies  from  my  brain  and  I 
slept  well.  This  morning  I  burned  letters 
and  useless  manuscripts  and  lounged 
about,  thinking  quite  calmly  and  pro- 
saically of  the  future.  I  have  lived  with 
genius  at  the  culminating  points  of  the 
race's  passion  and  imagination.  The 
mean  scope  of  the  individual  life  will 
scarcely  offer  anything  comparable.  The 
world  will  have  to  be  very  amusing  to 
rival  the  grotesques  of  Casanova  or  the 
Conies  Drolatiques  of  Balzac,  the  revelry 
of  the  Arabian  Nights  or  the  horrors  of 
de  Saad.  No ;  my  mind  won't  be  surprised, 
nor  my  senses.  Are  prepares  us  to  expect 
a  rapture  of  which  reality  is  probably 
19 


,THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

quite  innocent.  I  know  nothing  yet  as  a 
personal  experience,  but  I  don't  believe 
that  love  at  its  lowest  or  highest  terms  is 
the  consuming  ecstasy  that  Swinburne 
writes  about.  So  that  with  a  mind  learned 
in  all  the  intricacies  of  the  world's  adven- 
ture and  vice,  I  am  not  likely  to  be  either 
shocked  or  disappointed.  I  start  free  of 
all  prejudices,  stript  of  the  tawdriness  of 
all  time-honoured  lies.  Not  the  virtuous, 
not  the  faithful,  not  the  tenders  of  the 
altar-fires  of  any  propitiatory  fetishism 
have  encompassed  the  splendours  of  my 
desire,  or  have  lived  in  literature  or  made 
history.  Theodora  dancing  in  the  circus, 
Cleopatra  slaying  the  slaves  who  had 
satiated  her  lust,  Guinevere  and  Isolde 
branding  their  lords  with  shame,  Messa- 
lina  in  the  sailors'  tavern,  Herodias  of  the 
Seven  Deadly  Veils,  Lucretia  Borgia  and 
the  Pompadour,  the  lyric  secrets  of  intol- 
erable desire  that  lurk  in  the  eyes  of  the 
20 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Gioconda  of  Leonardo — these  are  the 
names  and  fates  with  which  the  world  still 
rings. 

And,  after  all,  fidelity  is  not  a  human, 
not  a  civilised  virtue  upon  any  terms.  It 
is  an  exact  contradiction  to  the  whole 
civilising  process  that  makes  for  mental 
and  sensory  complexity,  for  change  and 
multiplication  of  interest.  Unlike  the 
senses  of  doves,  canary  birds  and  donkeys, 
our  senses  are  inextricably  blended  with 
our  nerves  and  our  brains.  A  thousand 
subtle  influences  bind  or  estrange  us.  A 
light,  a  memory,  a  perfume,  a  fold  of 
drapery,  a  passage  of  verse — these  in- 
fluences in  the  human  process  of  sexual 
selection  tend  to  a  variety  of  which  the 
mere  body  is  ignorant,  but  which  is  the 
very  condition  of  the  soul's  life. 

I  start  free  of  another  drag.  My  heart 
is  not  very  tender  and  it  would  be  hard 
for  me  to  be  hurt  through  any  human  re- 
21 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

lationship.  I  shall  not  give  my  soul  away ; 
I  shall  not  suffer  through  compassion;  I 
am  not  made,  in  truth,  to  be  unhappy  or 
sorrowful.  My  mind  and  body  cry  out 
at  pain,  but  when  the  pain  is  over  there 
are  no  lees  of  regret  or  wistfulness  in  my 
heart.  Only  my  Art.  .  .  But  that  is  at 
an  end. 

After  I  had  taken  my  books  back  this 
afternoon  to  the  Royal  Library  for  the 
last  time,  I  sat  for  a  while  on  the  stone 
seat  in  the  garden.  The  river  was  a  ring 
of  jade,  the  green-tinted  Cathedral  and 
Palace  wavered  in  the  misty  air  on  the  op- 
posite bank.  I  had  sat  there  so  often 
snatching  a  moment  to  watch  the  tremours 
of  colour  before  I  returned  to  the  excite- 
ment of  sound.  But  now  I  am  done  with 
the  starved  question  of  music,  the  music's 
craving  to  understand,  the  exhausting, 
empty  answer.  And,  after  all,  we  are  hu- 
man; we  have  lips  and  hands.  That  rap- 
22 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ture  of  excitement  may  transcend  but  can- 
not forever  replace  the  earthlier  joys  on 
which  our  nerves  insist.  That  crying  of 
our  hearts  and  of  our  senses  which  is  the 
substance  of  art — shall  not  life  quiet  it? 

Yet  I  am  lonely  to  leave  them,  these 
monsters  and  wind  and  sea  deliriums! 
Could  anything  adequate  follow  this  furi- 
ous overture,  this  yearning  of  Titans 
through  the  thunder  and  boom  of  sym- 
phonies? 


LONDON 

June. — In  order  to  strike  the  keynote 
of  the  life  that  I  must  live  I  am  squander- 
ing what  money  I  have  on  a  setting 
worthy  of  me.  My  letters  of  introduction 
placed  me  at  once.  As  for  the  future — it 
must  make  terms  with  me.  I  can  buy  a 
few  months  of  magnificence;  the  world 
must  give  me  the  rest. 

The  pomp  and  historic  dignity  of  the 
picture  here  enchant  me  who  am,  in  this 
passion  for  our  ancestral  splendours,  a  true 
Colonial.  The  scent  of  English  flowers 
has  always  brooded  in  my  blood :  I  recog- 
nised it  at  once.  The  Palace  of  West- 
minster completes  my  dream,  but  offers  no 
24 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

new  vision.  Against  that  background  of 
sonorous  arches  stands  Oscar  Elliott. 
Day  before  yesterday  he  met  me  in  the 
Park.  The  white  hawthorn  was  in  bloom, 
the  elms  seemed  to  stand  at  the  rosy  edge 
of  the  world.  Oscar  Elliott  is  an  M.  P., 
impassive,  dark,  subtle.  But  yesterday  he 
looked  troubled.  Something  had  shaken 
that  slightly  imperial  calm. 

"It  is  useless  to  deny,"  he  said,  "that  I 
came  here  in  the  hope  of  meeting  you." 

Just  then  his  wife  passed  swiftly  in  her 
victoria,  and  my  frank  gentleman's  face 
grew  even  more  perturbed.  He  began  to 
talk  about  Jane  Austen.  ...  I  asked 
him  to  button  my  long  glove.  The  tips 
of  his  fingers  burned  on  the  silken  skin  of 
my  arm.  I  asked  him  whether  he  had  a 
fever.  Then  he  laughed. 

"You  witch!" 

"I  don't  see  how  I  deserve  that  epi- 
thet," I  answered  simply. 
25 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

He  looked  at  me  keenly  from  under  that 
ivory  forehead  of  his. 

"I  am  going  to  pay  you  a  serious  com- 
pliment," he  said.  "You  have  in  you  the 
'daemonic'  element  of  which  Goethe 
speaks.  I  am  not  accustomed  to  being 
drawn  out  of  my  orbit.  .  .  .  And 
now  ...  I  am  going  to  be  at  the 
Savoy  to-morrow  evening.'* 

"How  did  you  know?" 

"Because  I  must  know."  His  voice  had 
a  ring  of  finality,  almost  of  sternness. 
"You  understand,"  he  went  on,  "that  I 
don't  love  in  the  ordinary  romantic,  senti- 
mental way.  But  I  feel  that  you  are 
necessary  to  me.  Therefore,  I  must  pos- 
sess you." 

I  laughed  ironically  and  then  said  with- 
out a  tinge  of  colour  in  my  voice : 

"And  the  lady  in  the  victoria?" 

"Is  the  lady  in  the  victoria,  at  the  head 
of  the  table,  on  the  Committees  of  the 
26 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Charity  Bazaars — no  more.  Are  you  com- 
ing to  the  House  to-morrow  morning?" 

"Perhaps." 

He  crushed  my  fingers  in  his  hand. 

"Are  you  coming?" 

"Perhaps.     .     ." 

I  went.  The  attendant  asked  me  to 
write  on  a  card  the  object  of  my  visit.  I 
wonder  what  he  would  have  said  had  I 
written  the  truth.  Oscar  and  I  walked 
through  the  solemn  corridors  dimly  illumi- 
nated by  the  windows  of  stained  glass. 
He  was  taciturn  and  his  lips  were  slightly 
compressed.  He  opened  strange,  old 
books  almost  at  random  and  showed  them 
to  me.  Outside  the  birds  were  murmur- 
ing. Petals  from  the  red  roses  at  my 
breast  fell  strangely  upon  Oscar  Elliott's 
hands.  At  six  o'clock  the  chimes  beat  out 
their  immemorial  harmony  through  the 
suave  evening  air.  .  .  .  We  stepped 
out  into  a  sunset  world;  we  walked  in 
27 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

silence,  but  I  heard  the  moaning  of  his 
blood;  I  saw  the  trembling  of  his  hands; 
I  saw  the  broken  pride  of  his  strength. 

"To-night?"  he  said,  and  his  voice 
choked. 

"Oh,  at  the  Savoy,"  I  answered  lightly, 
"perhaps." 

He  is  strong  and  fine  at  once ;  and,  since 
I  am  done  with  austerity  and  restraint  it 
is  well  to  know  that  he  could  give  me 
orchids  and  pomegranates  and  myrrh; 
marble  and  diamond  and  chrysoprase; 
that  he  can  set  the  bare  melody  of  life  to 
a  rich  and  subtle  orchestration.  .  .  .  He 
doesn't  excite  me  personally,  but  I  don't 
want  to  be  excited.  I  want  my  life  to  be 
a  garden  full  of  gorgeous  flowers  having 
the  peal  of  bells.  I  want  to  walk  there 
and  see  the  terrible  loveliness  and  hear  the 
strange  vibrations.  .  .  . 

June  3. — We  dined  at  the  Savoy  last 
28. 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

evening.  At  first  everything  enchanted 
me  in  this  beautiful,  fragile,  wholly  and 
adorably  artificial  world.  Beneath  us 
trembled  the  lights  that  bind  the  river  and 
splash  the  gloom  of  the  water  with  pallor. 
Afar,  as  in  another  world,  we  heard  the 
roar  and  boom  of  the  city.  But  we  were 
here,  deliciously  isolated  from  all  grind 
and  vulgarity.  The  coarseness  and  bru- 
tality of  Nature  were  excluded  here;  this 
was  a  refuge  and  a  Paradise  of  Man.  All 
my  civilised,  all  my  sophisticated  in- 
stincts, drank  in  the  atmosphere  and  the 
glamour  greedily.  White  lights  and 
gold;  hot-house  roses;  strange,  delicate 
foods  and  the  glitter  of  precious  vintages, 
how  they  satisfy  with  their  fair  allure- 
ments my  subtler  senses. 

Oscar  Elliott  was  to  come,  but  he  was 

detained   at   the   House.     The   message 

seemed  to  darken  the  lights,  to  make  the 

food  like  earth,  the  wine  like  hyssop.    I 

29 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

felt  my  face  shrink  and  the  lines  grow 
under  my  eyes;  my  very  breasts  fell;  I 
had  to  tighten  the  lace  over  them.  I  felt 
like  a  pricked  soap-bubble.  My  God,  do  I 
love  him?  Have  I  sold  my  freedom  so 
early  to  an  alien  strength?  No!  But  a 
grey  fear  crept  into  my  heart  that  he  was 
breaking  the  bonds  of  his  own  desire.  .  .  . 
Then,  in  a  week,  I  saw  myself  in  the  In- 
ferno of  Bloomsbury,  awakened  by  a 
scullery  maid  with  a  tallow  dip.  I  saw 
myself  giving  music  lessons  at  three  shil- 
lings, or  in  the  end  .  .  . 

Just  as  the  pallid  dawn  threatened  to 
quench  the  light  of  our  artificial  loveliness, 
just  as  the  babble  about  me  became  unen- 
durable— he  came.  Heavens!  The  emo- 
tion is  so  execrably  old  and  hackneyed. 
Vieux  jeu  like  all  the  rest.  But  it  came 
upon  me  with  a  freshness  as  of  the  winds 
of  Spring,  white  and  jubilant  from  space. 
He  didn't  speak  to  me,  he  chatted  with 
80 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  others.  But  the  flames  of  his  two  eyes 
were  upon  my  eyes,  my  lips,  my  arms,  my 
bosom — those  consuming  flames.  He 
avoided  even  the  brushing  of  my  skirts 
against  him  as  if  the  intolerably  poignant 
touch  would  cause  some  catastrophe.  At 
the  door  of  the  carriage  he  held  out  his 
hand  dumbly,  like  a  beggar,  and  I 
dropped  into  it  one  red  rose. 

June  10. — It  has  come,  the  cataclysmic 
moment  for  which  I  have  kept  my  lips 
pure  and  my  hands  unsullied.  I  am  dis- 
appointed, shocked,  bored.  .  .  . 

We  were  all  at  the  Sayces,  for  the  week- 
end. Their  balconies  and  terraces  and 
their  Italian  garden  are  like  a  picture — 
blue  and  gold  and  purple — a  picture  of 
the  Renaissance.  The  tall  poplars 
seemed  spangled  with  the  stars ;  the  white 
statues  glimmered  in  the  thickets,  im- 
memorial dreams  in  their  unseeing  eyes. 
31 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  lake  sleeps  so  terribly  still  that  the 
image  of  the  moon  lies  in  it  like  a  silver 
cup.  We  had  danced  until  a  madness 
seemed  to  impel  our  feet,  until  we  seemed 
moved  by  an  external  power  through  the 
mazes  of  an  immortal  dance.  The  night 
was  warm  and  Oscar  Elliott  took  me  out 
upon  the  terrace.  The  winds  were  dead. 
I  looked  at  him  and  saw  that  he  was  pale. 
Something  in  me  yearned  toward  the 
cooler  greenery  of  the  garden,  and  we 
walked  slowly  among  the  poplars,  the 
beautiful  trees  of  the  night.  It  was  all 
dreamlike — a  picture  from  an  Italian 
madrigal.  We  came  upon  a  statue  of 
Hermes  and  Oscar  leaned  his  forehead 
against  the  cool  marble,  and  all  about  us 
was  silent.  I  stood  beside  him  when,  sud- 
denly, a  nightingale  began  to  sing  so 
wildly,  so  passionately,  with  such  a  ter- 
rible insistence  as  though  the  mighty  pul- 
sations of  sound  must  burst  its  little 
32 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

throat.  Oscar  looked  up.  He  came  so 
near  me  that  his  eyes  seemed  to  melt  into 
mine. 

"Our  doom  is  upon  us,"  he  said  in  a 
voice  shaken  by  strange  sobs,  as  the  trees 
are  shaken  by  the  winds,  "our  doom  is 
upon  us." 

We  walked  swiftly  to  an  arbour  and  I 
sank  upon  a  bench  of  marble.  He  took 
my  hand. 

"Let  me  touch  you." 

I  drew  away,  but  he  forced  me  toward 
him. 

"Let  me  touch  you,"  he  gasped,  "your 
flesh  is  so  white.  .  .  ." 

His  fingers  sank  into  my  arm,  and  my 
body,  as  he  held  me  beside  him,  seemed  to 
match  his,  muscle  by  muscle,  like  the 
grooves  of  a  puzzle.  He  pressed  back  my 
head  as  if  to  cut  my  throat  and  mangled 
my  lips  under  his.  A  cold  fever  shook  me 
with  monstrous  tremours.  I  trembled  like 
33 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

grass  and  my  teeth  chattered  in  my 
head.  .  .  . 

Then  we  heard  voices,  soft  and  distant 
yet.  He  released  me  and  we  sat  beside 
each  other  movelessly  as  stones.  By  the 
faint  glimmer  of  the  light  I  saw  the  peb- 
bles upon  the  path  at  our  feet  and  I  tried, 
hazily,  to  count  them.  But  I  lost  my 
count  again  and  again.  After  a  while  I 
heard  his  voice  sounding  abruptly. 

"Come." 

We  went  back  into  the  glitter  of  many 
lights  among  the  crowd  of  faces,  but  all 
these  persons  seemed  small  and  strange 
and  irrelevant.  .  .  . 

That  night  I  slipped  into  the  cooling 
waters  of  a  bath.  I  put  handfuls  of  lav- 
ender into  it,  lavender  with  its  clean,  pure 
odour.  I  looked  upon  the  whiteness  of  my 
body,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that  his  touch 
must  have  left  wounds  upon  it — the  in- 
delible stigmata  of  his  terrible  passion. 
34 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

But  I  found  nothing  save  a  blue  spot  on 
my  left  arm.  I  was  glad  to  lie  between 
the  cool  sheets  of  my  bed  and  to  feel  them 
against  my  burning  body. 

And  this  was  the  climax  of  being 
young,  the  climax  of  love — this  brutal 
trick  of  Nature's  to  insure  population,  this 
tremour  of  ice-flame  madness.  I  have  lost 
Oscar  Elliott  and  found,  in  his  place,  that 
eternal  beast — Man.  What  is  the  use  of 
loving  any  one  if  passion  transforms  him 
and  my  washerwoman's  "bloke"  into  the 
identical  animal  with  the  identical  ruthless 
appetites ;  if  all  the  artificial  beauty  of  life 
cracks  at  one  blow  of  that  eternal  ham- 
mer; if  the  same  mechanical  gibber  of  in- 
stinct has  made  apes  and  then  man  and 
builds  its  universe  continually  anew  out  of 
the  dust  of  perished  kisses?  But  we  are 
helpless  under  the  yoke  of  creation.  The 
romance  is  dead,  the  delicate  pose  shat- 
tered, the  love  fled.  And  yet  .  .  .  and 
35 


yet  .  .  .  were  he  to  stretch  out  his  hand 
again  my  flesh  would  hasten  to  the  stroke. 
But  I  don't  want  to  do  that.  For  a  space, 
at  least,  I  want  my  beautiful  illusion,  my 
delicate  pantomime.  I  want  to  pose  with 
my  fairylike  frocks  and  the  June  nights 
and  the  Terrace  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons as  a  background.  I  wanted  this 
man,  so  much  older,  so  grave  and  so  noted, 
to  break  through  all  laws  for  me  and  say : 
"I  love  you."  It  is  too  early  for  the  rest. 
I  will  not  become  the  instrument  of  the 
reproductive  impulse  until  I  have  lived 
long  enough  in  my  strange  garden  of  the 
sonant  flowers. 

He  came  as  soon  as  he  could  after  our 
return  to  town.  He  was  again  strong, 
smooth,  immaculate.  But  I  remembered 
the  sensual  mask  that  had  been  his  face 
that  night  under  the  poplars  and  I  shud- 
dered. He  saw  the  change  in  me  at  once. 
36 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

"I  see  you  have  repented  of  the  other 
night.  You  wish  it  to  end  then?" 

The  words  struck  a  cold  flame  from  me. 

"Repent?  Do  you  think  I  am  one  of 
the  fools  who  do  what  they  never  intended, 
who  let  life  betray  them?  I  do  a  thing  be- 
cause it  is  a  part  of  myself,  because  it  is 
inconceivable  that,  given  the  circum- 
stances, it  could  touch  my  temperament  in 
any  other  way.  I  can  no  more  repent  of 
my  deliberate  acts  than  I  could  repent  of 
my  height  or  the  shape  of  my  mouth." 

"In  that  case  I  do  not  understand." 

Then  I  spoke  slowly. 

"I  expected  to  find  the  smile  of  a  god, 
not  the  grin  of  a  satyr." 

He  rested  his  chin  on  his  hand  and 
looked  at  me  with  an  old,  old  smile. 

"Dear  child,  you  might  as  well  try  to 

escape  the  sun  as  the  clutches  of  the  satyr. 

You  will  be  so  tame  under  his  touch — so 

soon.    But  I  will  tell  you  for  your  con- 

37  * 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

solation  that  he,  even  he,  is  one  of  the 
servants  of  the  divine  Eros,  whose  face 
you  may  one  day  see." 

"I  am  going  away,"  I  said  coldly,  but 
he  was  not  to  be  put  off. 

"Do  you  think  that  you  love  me?" 

"I  like  you  to  kiss  me,"  I  answered,  and 
my  voice  was  now  clear  and  steady. 
"But  why  can't  you — be  gentle  about  it, 
and  just  imagine  for  the  moment  that  you 
are  engaged  to  be  married  to  me?" 

He  laughed  a  rich,  sonorous,  sensual 
laugh. 

"If  I  imagined — that,  if  I  imagined 
myself  engaged  to  be  married  to  you — I 
would  think  of  the  time  when  I  would 
be 

IL/V*  •  •  • 

God!    Why  did  he  say  that? 

I  turned  my  back  to  him  and  his  voice 
came  to  me  from  behind,  stern,  compelling 
and  yet — sweet. 

"You  may  go  away,  but  I  think  that  you 
38 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

will  come  back.  You  cannot  forget  my 
kisses  in  the  garden,  for  they  awakened 
you  to  life.  And  if  you  are  far  away  and 
hungry  for  my  kisses,  hungry  for  the 
clutch  of  the  undying  satyr — send  for  me 
and  I  will  come." 

I  hate  him,  for  it  is  possible  that  he 
speaks  the  execrable  truth.  But  he 
wrongs  the  woman  that  I  really  am,  the 
woman  who  can  die  but  who  cannot  be 
compelled. 

And  now?  Well,  I  have  invested  my 
few  pounds  in  judicious  luxury.  People 
are  glad  to  have  me.  I  think  I  shall  ac- 
cept one  of  my  many  invitations.  I  think 
I  shall  go  to  the  pearl-grey  sky,  the  pale- 
green  sea,  the  austere  mountains  of  the 
North.  After  that  flame  of  passion  has  so 
seared  me,  I  shall  step  into  a  symphony 
of  pallid  shades  and  elemental  sounds.  I 
shall  dip  my  wrists  in  the  cool  waves  of 
the  unimpassioned  seas;  I  shall  watch  the 
39 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

flight  of  the  desolate  sea-gulls  over  the  icy 
waters.  I  shall  go  to  regions  where  Na- 
ture, eternally  virginal,  sleeps  under  an 
enduring  veil  of  snow. 


40 


CHRISTIANIA 

THE  Dunnes'  yacht  Pythia. 

August. — I  have  got  back  to  the  fairy- 
tale. The  facts  of  life,  the  meaning  of 
words,  no  longer  touch  me.  I  was  in  an- 
other universe,  another  life,  amidst  an- 
other humanity.  Now  I  am  empty- 
hearted,  glad,  sunfilled. 

I  would  like  to  sculpture  this  moment — 
the  broad  noon,  the  emerald  sea,  the  pale 
sky.  Everything  is  crystalline,  young, 
unmoved.  The  silence  of  the  winter  has 
hardly  left  it ;  it  is  August ;  yet  the  woods 
are  coloured  under  foot  with  buds  and 
delicate  leaves  that  come  with  spring.  The 
wind  is  vibrant  with  the  smell  of  pine 
trees,  and  one  hears  the  ceaseless  music  of 
forests. 

41 


THE     TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Christiania  looks  grey  and  indifferent 
at  the  edge  of  the  fjord.  It  seems  jaded 
against  this  supernal  freshness  of  nature, 

I  did  not  want  to  go  into  the  town  nor 
to  go  again  near  any  place  where  mankind 
lived.  The  phrases  of  their  episodes  are 
nothing  any  longer  except  as  values  for 
art  criticism;  passion  is  the  nervous  effect 
of  augmented  ninths,  and  voluptuousness 
an  expression  that  was  made  for  the  emo- 
tion of  colour. 

The  people  on  the  yacht  are  adjuncts, 
furniture,  creatures  whose  existence  makes 
possible  the  routine  of  food  and  sleep  and 
this  luxury  of  travel,  this  theft  of  beauti- 
ful things  out  of  life.  For  if  that  indecent 
exposure  of  circumstance  which  is  called 
truth  should  take  place  I  would  not  be 
here.  I  have  no  money,  and  people  with- 
out money  are  not  popular  members  of 
civilised  communities.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  in  a  couple  of  months  I  shall  have 
42 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

made  myself  a  pauper — just  as  much  a 
pauper  as  the  unimaginative  beings  who 
inhabit  workhouses.  For,  of  course, 
if  they  had  any  imagination,  any  trace  of 
temperament,  any  redeeming  sign  of  the 
attributes  which  we  flatter  ourselves  dis- 
tinguish us  from  brutes,  they  would  be 
thieves  or  courtesans. 

But  for  the  meantime  I  have  Doucet 
frocks,  and  I  drink  out  of  Sevres  tea-cups. 

At  the  back  of  my  mind  somewhere  I 
enjoy  the  prospect  of  danger.  I  am  glad 
to  have  poured  all  my  chance  of  safe  life 
into  the  lap  of  Fate.  It  is  on  the  knees 
of  the  gods.  That's  the  charm  of  it;  it 
will  be  a  play  between  the  gods  and  me. 

I  was  determined  that  when  I  did  go  on 
shore  I  would  go  alone.  People  deaden 
me  if  I  am  not  making  a  mental  play  out 
of  them;  then  the  surroundings  are  only 
scenery  for  the  stage  of  the  idea. 

Human  beings  devour  my  vitality,  muti- 
43 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

late  my  moods,  get  between  myself  and  the 
picture  of  the  moment,  as  smoke  gets  in 
front  of  a  camera.  Their  nearness  mauls 
off  the  bloom  of  any  beauty,  and  is  to  me 
like  rough  hands  fingering  grapes. 

Even  Jim  Blake  is  merely  a  male  tint 
for  the  effect  of  moonlight.  I  find  him 
very  useful  on  the  yacht  for  the  sex  illus- 
tration of  crepuscular  effects ;  then  his  six 
feet  two,  his  Irish  accent,  his  eagerness  to 
paint  scenery  by  instinct,  are  as  useful  as 
plates  at  dinner.  He  is  superfluous,  how- 
ever, in  the  emotion  of  places  or  Art. 

So  I  took  my  senses  in  my  hand  and 
went  to  the  Viking  Ships.  I  sat  down  in 
front  of  them,  and  asked  them  what  they 
were  going  to  make  me  feel. 

But  I  hate  old  things — they  drown  us  in 
the  depths  of  our  little  years.  For,  after 
all,  there  is  so  little  originality  in  anything 
we  know  of  our  existence.  Even  the  sea 
pants  and  rages  in  its  early  manner.  I 
44 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

can't  imagine  how  it  gets  up  enough 
energy,  now,  to  generate  a  storm. 

And  life  with  us  is  still  the  same,  auto- 
matic expression  of  an  instinct  that  we 
certainly  ought  to  have  considerably  am- 
plified when  we  shed  our  tails.  A  few  dar- 
ing souls  may  decorate  the  world  in  the 
form  of  cannibals,  but  really  novel  meth- 
ods of  using  the  forces  which  we  share 
with  all  creation,  from  an  earthworm  up, 
are  practically  non-existent. 

I  want,  you  want,  they  want;  I  love, 
you  love,  they  love.  To  be  held  in  the  de- 
clension of  a  verb!  Shade  of  Spencer!  is 
there  nothing  personal  in  being  human? 

I  am  sick  of  sharing  in  the  enlighten- 
ment of  a  jelly-fish,  and  I  don't  care  about 
being  a  superior  protoplasm.  I  want  to 
be  I,  myself,  with  a  whole  set  of  original 
instincts  for  my  exclusive  use. 

When  I  left  the  ships,  to  go  to  the  little 
picture-gallery,  they  were  selling  red  roses 
* 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

on  the  quay — a  blur  of  blood  against  the 
grey  of  the  palace. 

>  The  red  roses  made  my  cheeks  go  white. 
It  is  yet  August,  and  the  birds  are  still 
whimpering  among  the  stones  of  Palace 
Yard.  It  was  so  far  away;  it  was  over; 
my  heart  became  hollow  in  the  sunlight.  I 
had  touched  life  for  a  moment :  what  were 
the  fjord  and  the  trees  worth  beside  that? 
They  were  an  imitation  world. 

But  I  went  doggedly  on,  to  see  the 
painted  emotion  I  had  promised  myself. 
It  is,  after  all,  familiar  to  me  to  forget 
that  I  am  flesh  and  blood. 

The  walls  at  first  only  opened  out  to 
fresh  seas,  and  distant  skies  and  wind,  the 
invariable  blue  and  white  and  sun  of  the 
Northern  men.  I  looked  at  them  va- 
cantly ;  the  dusty  red  velvet  seats  were  not 
very  comfortable ;  the  sun  pressed  hard  on 
the  linen  blind  that  bulged  down  from  the 
glass  ceiling.  A  shaft  of  sun  in  front  of 
46 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

me  tremoured  with  a  myriad  glittering 
mites  of  dust.  Everything  was  mordant 
and  hushed,  youth  was  dead — stillborn.  I 
could  never  get  back  those  mysterious, 
London  days,  that  seemed  to  veil  some 
ecstasy  ready  to  come  on  the  world. 

I  went  dully  on  to  the  next  room,  and 
there  waited  for  me — to  brand  me,  to 
mock  me,  to  mark  me  as  a  coward — the 
Sinding  "Humanity";  its  abandonment, 
the  sense  of  the  ultimate  embrace.  My 
life  was  dust  before  it.  All  I  had  to  make 
up  for  this  were  some  phrases  of  Rossetti 
I  had  read,  some  moments  of  Strauss  I 
had  listened  to,  and  what  beside?  What 
beside? — some  memory  of  perfume  of 
hawthorn  blossoms,  some  smothered  mur- 
muring of  birds,  and  afterwards — I  forced 
my  memory  to  it — those  words !  The  place 
faded  behind  my  tears.  It  needs  not  all 
the  surrender  of  the  "Humanity"  to  burn 
up  the  universe  in  everybody's  final  fire. 
47 


STOCKHOLM 

Tuesday. — The  sun  has  netted  the 
water  in  gold  this  morning.  Every  breath 
is  an  impetus — I  don't  know  to  what,  but 
as  long  as  it  is  an  impetus,  it  is  enough.  I 
have  the  whole  world,  and  a  whole  life  un- 
lived. I  am  so  glad  I  am  young! 

The  light  glitters  like  a  gemmed  veil, 
the  roofs  and  towers  of  the  houses  are 
gold,  the  canals  are  edged  by  rainbows  of 
blue  and  rose  and  yellow.  A  great  build- 
ing— a  white,  Moorish,  fairy-palace  build- 
ing— stands  at  the  meeting  of  mythical, 
foaming  waters.  The  awnings  are  broad 
blue  and  white  stripes,  such  as  you  think 
they  would  paint  in  a  picture  of  Algiers, 
and  groups  of  red  geraniums  mark  inter- 
vals on  the  marble  balustrade.  Canals 
48 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

creep  in  and  out  under  carved  bridges ;  the 
water  is  liquid  enamel,  with,  here  and 
there,  waterfalls  spraying  diamonds.  The 
sun  has  the  whole  world  warmed  into  a 
luscious  acceptance  of  life. 

You  stand  aside  and  watch  it,  and  know 
it  is  unutterably  lovely,  and  that  you  are 
enjoying  it  supremely.  But  you  can't  hold 
the  charm  for  more  than  a  second.  Why 
can't  things  be  sufficient? 

One  should  be  a  different  person,  a  dif- 
ferent epoch,  a  different  emotion  in  order 
to  match  every  city,  and  one  must  have 
memories  of  realities  for  this,  not  moods  of 
Art.  Anyway,  feeling,  appreciation, 
brain,  are  acquired  things  to  our  human- 
ity. Mind  is  merely  an  instinct — a  man- 
ner of  monkey's  tail  to  swing  from  one 
cocoanut  success  to  another. 

Friday. — Jim  had  drawn  two  chairs  to 
the  dark  corner  of  the  stern,  and  I  felt  a 
scene  in  the  atmosphere.  I  had  dressed 
49 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

for  it.  I  knew  that  the  little  crescent  of  a 
moon  set  on  the  pale  blue  sky,  the  mystic 
night  twilight,  the  scent  of  the  pines  and 
sea,  and  the  jars  of  mimosa  and  geraniums 
on  the  deck,  would  have  their  inevitable 
effect.  I  understand  the  Celtic  tempera- 
ment. But  being  only  half  Irish  I  am  also 
on  the  other  side  of  the  footlights  and  see 
the  paint  on  its  face. 

The  green  gauze  certainly  makes  me 
look  unearthly,  and  with  my  huge  chin- 
chilla motor  coat  over  it,  I  look  rather  like 
the  front  page  of  " Jugend." 

I  was  curious.  He  is  muscular  to  a  de- 
gree that  in  a  society  not  openly  polyan- 
drous  is  quite  immoral.  He  belongs  to  a 
type  that  is  the  only  type  which  I  label  as 
male  at  all,  and  I  wanted  to  see  if  this 
kind  of  thing  is  only  anatomical,  or  if 
there  is  something  beyond. 

What  attraction  I  have  for  him  I 
cannot  understand.  My  inconsistencies, 
50 


moods,  the  very  temperament  that  Oscar 
plays  on  as  on  a  violin,  is  as  uncompre- 
hended  by  this  thing  of  muscle  and  eyes  as 
the  possibilities  of  Schumann.  He  would 
like  to  grind  out  sentiment  from  women 
with  the  surety  and  routine  of  arias  from 
a  hand  organ. 

Men  feel  a  relaxed  mood  in  regard  to 
them  as  quickly  as  a  bloodhound  scents 
blood.  I  asked  him  a  question,  and  he 
leaned  half  way  over  my  chair  to  answer. 

I  endured  that.  I  do  not  allow  any 
personal  feeling  to  interfere  in  my  psycho- 
logical experiments. 

And  then,  when  my  hand  was  in  his,  and 
1  heard  him  say  the  things  that  are  the  key 
to  actualities — if  you  want  to  use  them — I 
knew  how  little  the  mere  words,  the  mere 
facts  count. 

"Let  me  kiss  you — only  once — even  if 
you  don't  care.  You  might  give  me  this. 
— Ah" — he  leaned  nearer — "how  I  want 
51 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

to  bring  my  lips  into  contact  with  your 
flesh!" 

Why  do  men  think  it  necessary  to  use 
such  brutal  phrases  to  me?  Or  do  they 
use  them  to  every  woman?  But  the  words 
were  empty  from  him — yet  what  Oscar 
said  had  bruised  my  soul. 

It  did  not  even  make  me  angry — it 
merely  bored  me,  like  a  page  of  Baude- 
laire, badly  translated. 

I  shook  my  hand  from  his. 

Thursday. — Of  course  we  all  know — all 
literature  dins  it  into  us  consciously  or  un- 
consciously— that  pleasure,  altruistic  or 
otherwise,  is  the  aim  of  life. 

Shall  it  be  Swinburne  or  Spencer? 
Shall  I  be  content  to  be  deceived,  or  com- 
mence everything  with  an  instigatory 
sneer? 

All  the  gods  are  greedy  for  what  I  have 
gained.  I  have  the  riches  of  the  world,  all 
52 


the  world  really  has  to  work  with — Youth, 
Youth!  It  is  the  big  stake,  and  they  all 
want  it.  It  is  amusing  to  feel  the  angels 
and  the  devils,  if  there  are  any,  contending 
for  what  in  olden  times  they  were  pleased 
to  call  a  soul. 

I  can  decide,  and  the  time  has  come  now 
when  I  must  choose  one  way  or  the  other. 
Either  way  would  be  interesting,  of 
course,  if  followed  to  its  extreme;  but 
which  will  give  me  the  most  pleasure? 

Even  in  the  greatest  ignorance,  we  may 
get  some  sudden  sense  of  life,  and  I  im- 
agine that,  after  all,  it  really  doesn't  make 
very  much  difference  what  you  do,  it  all 
depends  on  the  way  you  do  it ;  and  that  all 
the  agonies  around  all  the  big  words  in  our 
language  are  tricks  to  make  small  people 
seem  big.  They  have  no  imagination, 
therefore  they  say  lies  are  wrong;  they 
create  a  virtue  out  of  their  impotence. 
People  have  gifts  for  great,  magnificent 
53 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

braveries ;  and  the  weak  and  cowardly  and 
abortive  brand  them  as  sins. 

It  is  absurd  to  talk  about  deciding, 
when  every  vein  in  me  aches  for  all  the  ad- 
venture and  the  beauty  of  the  world.  If 
we  are  worth  anything  at  all  we  want  all 
the  magnificence  the  world  has,  and  we  are 
not  worth  having  it  if  we  don't  get  it. 

To  have  the  courage  of  your  excess,  to 
find  the  limit  of  yourself ! 

But  still,  I  have  not  quite  lost  the  trick 
of  delusion.  It  may  be  merely  because  I 
am  young,  but  some  dream  still  persists; 
— the  race  of  the  blue  mysterious  sea,  the 
fluent  night  hung  with  stars,  the  passing 
of  cities  with  names  jewelled  and  set  in 
gold.  But  I  know  that  my  pleasure  in  it 
is  all  fantastic,  physical,  story-made.  It 
has  been  like  taking  long  breaths  of  a 
flower;  it  is  the  flower  of  life,  we  get  its 
perfume  only  once. 

Afterwards,  no  doubt,  the  world 
54 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

changes.     As  we  grow  older  the  liquid 
jewelling  grows  dull  and  solid. 

Myself  too!    Most  women  turn  to  salt, 
looking  back. 


ST.  PETERSBURG 

THE  Dunnes'  yacht  Pythia. 

August. — St.  Petersburg  gets  into  the 
blood;  it  has  gone  to  my  brain.  A  tray 
of  wet,  wonderful,  pink  roses  in  the  stone 
square  outside  the  palace,  and  the  brazen 
clang  of  military  music.  Redness,  blood, 
power,  strength — the  strength  that  wants 
and  takes,  the  unhesitating  strength  of 
brute  and  brains.  The  width  of  the  Nev- 
sky  Prospect,  the  rush  of  the  horses,  ab- 
solutely indifferent  to  anything  which  may 
come  in  their  way ;  it  is  Northern  and  it  is 
new,  and  it  is  insatiably  greedy.  I  feel  the 
gilt  domes  and  granite  bases,  I  under- 
stand the  warmth  now,  the  cold  that  comes 
later.  I  can  imagine  the  flame  of  sun- 
blazed  snow  around  the  stone  and  the 
56 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

colour  of  the  roofs.  But  with  everything 
that  seems  familiar  about  it,  there  is,  too, 
the  charm  of  some  unknown  sumptuous- 
ness  of  temperament.  It  is  the  stark  reali- 
sation of  useless  gorgeousness,  alive,  virile, 
huge ;  imagination  realised,  and  as  useless 
as  the  iridescence  of  a  humming-bird's 
wing,  or  the  gemmed  scales  of  a  snake.  It 
perpetuates  the  race  nevertheless.  It  has 
the  same  effect  as  Nature's  loveliness,  who 
accomplishes  her  purpose  in  scarlet  and 
perfume  and  velvet  moths.  It  runs  over 
and  drips  to  the  slighter  minds  who  breed 
their  designs  in  the  shadow  of  red  brick 
rows  and  comfortable,  grey  stone 
churches. 

But  if  we  can't  exactly  equal  the 
grandeur  of  the  Russian  greed — the  Pro- 
teus crouched  at  the  edge  of  Europe — we 
can  at  least  get  the  variety  of  the  junk 
shop.  We,  too,  can  get  the  Protean 
charm  of  life.  But  in  grasping  music 
57  i 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

now,  and  colour  next,  and  afterwards 
turning  to  words,  perhaps  we  miss  the 
grace  of  all — miss  the  power  to  feel  com- 
pletely any  single  thing.  "O  thou  soul  of 
my  soul,  I  shall  clasp  thee  again."  But 
what?  but  who?  but  when?  Every  differ- 
ent person  in  oneself  is  responsive  to  dif- 
ferent people,  and  one  couldn't  keep  a  sort 
of  emotional  rabbit-hutch  in  eternity 
where  one  could  give  each  affinity  in  turn 
its  own  infinite  embrace. 

I'm  afraid  even  transcendental  constitu- 
tions couldn't  stand  the  strain. 

After  the  fleshly  mood  that  St.  Peters- 
burg gives,  after  the  brutal  swagger  of  the 
Cossacks,  the  whir  of  fast  horses,  I  felt 
rather  out  of  place  in  the  strictly  spiritual 
gathering  of  Murillos  and  Correggios  in 
the  Hermitage :  the  red-mouthed  Madon- 
nas, the  unexcited  saints,  the  questioning 

of  painted  eyes. 

58 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Life  does  not  seem  now  to  have  any 
time  for  the  dreams  of  impotent  moments, 
pressing  its  lips  to  the  mouth  of  the  future 
.  .  .  and  the  marble  staircase  is  so 
high,  the  marble  halls  so  very  cold  and 
long!  The  massive,  bent  monsters  of  men 
and  women,  holding  up  the  portico  of  the 
Hermitage,  are  like  the  senses  that  strive 
to  get  their  satisfaction  from  the  things 
inside. 

But  when  I  went  to  St.  Isaac's  for  the 
afternoon  service,  the  gilt  gates  of  the 
High  Altar  were  open,  the  red  in  the 
Christ's  robe  window  showed  with  the 
crimson  of  a  sunset  that  mixed  into  the 
darkness.  The  rapture  of  the  voices 
touched  me,  like  a  memory. 

But  you  don't  regret  people,  you  regret 
the  mood  you  had  with  them.  The  jewels 
on  the  mitres  of  the  priests  were  naked 
flame ;  the  colours  of  the  columns  of  mala- 
chite and  lapis  lazuli  changed  and  moved, 
59 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

as   though   some   memory   of   light   had 
stirred  to  the  depths  of  unborn  worlds. 

The  27th. — St.  Petersburg  realises 
many  dreams.  I  don't  know  whether  it  is 
altogether  profitable;  a  dream  realised  is 
dead;  and  Peterhof  is  posed  as  for  all  the 
extravagance  of  life  that  women  long  for. 
You  walk  with  the  ghosts  of  dead  em- 
presses, through  its  mirrored  galleries. 

But  all  women  are  to  themselves 
creatures  of  infinite  power,  if  they  only 
had  the  opportunity  to  exercise  it.  Given 
beauty  and  Egypt,  what  chorus  girl  could 
not  play  Cleopatra?  It  is  only,  after  all, 
the  lovers  of  Cleopatra  that  have  made  her 
famous.  But  we,  we  who  have  no  money, 
no  empire,  no  power,  what  have  we  to 
make  up  for  the  gold  tissue  and  rose  gar- 
lands and  diamonds,  for  the  hundred 
lovers  picked  out  from  the  cleverest  and 
60 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

finest  of  the  world,  as  one  picks  out  fish  or 
pheasants  ? 

We  have  Virtue!  I  turned  and  sur- 
veyed my  black-gauze-dressed,  thin  body 
in  one  of  the  silver-framed  mirrors  and 
laughed  aloud. 

Virtue ! 

I  shall  never  put  on  a  grey  dress  and 
say  that  I  am  good,  simply  because  I 
haven't  the  money  to  put  on  a  white  satin 
one  and  say  that  nothing  is  wicked. 

For  Sin  is  an  extravagance  for  the  rich. 
Oh,  how  I  want  money,  how  I  want 
money! 


61 


MOSCOW 

Thursday. -^- They  have  kept  themselves 
apart  from  life,  and  have  had  to  adapt 
themselves  to  civilisation  with  a  rush.  I 
have  kept  myself  apart  from  life,  and  shall 
probably  adapt  myself  to  reality  with  just 
such  suddenness. 

Only  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  they  had 
torture  in  their  prisons:  only  a  year  ago, 
and  I  was  in  the  still  garden  in  Dresden, 
and  forced  myself,  with  the  sense  of  per- 
sonal insult,  to  read  Nietzsche.  And  the 
other  things  too  that  have  stayed  with  me 
as  questions  to  be  answered!  The  "And 
each  man  kills  the  thing  he  loves,"  for  in- 
stance. 

Moscow  explains  that.  That  is,  the 
summer  of  Moscow  explains  it.  What 
62 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

would  the  winter  mean — my  winter,  for  I 
am  of  the  North,  too?  I  know  the  sun  on 
the  long,  spiked  icicles  hanging  from 
snow- weigh  ted  trees;  the  organ  of  the 
moon  swelling  through  the  white  silence  of 
a  zero  night.  We  of  the  North,  we  are  a 
race  apart. 

The  colour  of  mind  is  the  whole  of  ge- 
ography, and  here  you  feel  the  incentive  of 
the  sun  that  stays  into  the  night,  the  unfelt 
heat  of  the  stars  on  the  snow.  In  the 
North,  men  long  to  drag  down  warmth 
from  the  sky. 

But  we  can  go  from  North  to  South, 
and  vary  it  with  the  temper  of  the  East, 
and  be  a  hundred  people,  a  hundred  emo- 
tions. We  can  be  heir  of  all  the  desire  of 
history,  if  we  only  travel  enough.  People 
are  all  the  effect  of  places,  not  of  them- 
selves. 

Ivan  the  Terrible's  coffin  stands  in  its 
63 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

black  box — wooden  ugliness  on  wooden 
trestles — in  one  of  the  churches.  I  didn't 
know  it  was  there,  yet  this  thing  that 
would  have  set  every  nerve  screaming  else- 
where merely  looked  strong  here.  It  was 
so  essentially  a  coffin  that  the  whole  horror 
was  taken  away — rough  planks  painted 
black,  made  to  hold  a  dead  man.  I  who 
have  fled  in  nausea  from  the  mummy  room 
of  the  British  Museum  looked  at  this  box 
stolidly  and  felt  that  this  was  real  life, 
that  this  was  truth. 

Death  is  ugly,  inevitable,  universal ;  and 
we  take  it  as  a  tragic  surprise.  It  is  the 
flummery  we  have  allowed  our  minds  to 
build  around  death  and  honour  and  love 
that  makes  half,  nearly  all,  of  the  despair 
of  the  world. 

But  I  suppose  it  would  sterilise  life  if 
we  thought  of  things  as  they  are;  if  we 
watched  the  stagnant  pools  in  which  we 
grow  such  lilies. 

64 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

There  is  something  maddening  in  the 
Russian  August  sun.  Here  in  Moscow  it 
spreads  over  all  the  red  and  the  gold.  It 
makes  the  colour  change  and  swell  with  it, 
and  you  could  imagine  genii  and  incubi 
and  long-taloned  spirits  of  past  evils 
creeping  over  the  ramparts  and  playing 
with  red-hot  pitchforks  in  the  quiver  of  the 
oblique  light. 

The  pinnacles  are  twisted  as  though 
seized  by  giant  fingers  in  a  spasm  of 
cruelty ;  the  red  walls  are  open  wounds. 

It  answers  to  something  in  our  blood; 
we  too  were  barbarians  once.  You  are 
shown  all  the  pleasures  you  do  not  know, 
and  all  the  greed  of  the  human  animal 
raises  its  head  to  meet  it. 

I  sat  down  on  the  balustrade  beside 
Alexander's  statue  in  the  Kremlin,  to  let 
the  place  give  me  its  mood.  Why  should 
I  not  live  picturesquely  and  determinedly 
the  life  I  want?  The  general  public's 
65 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

view  of  life  is,  after  all,  only  the  opinion  of 
the  paving-stones  of  society ;  and  the  only 
attention  one  should  pay  them  is  not  to  let 
them  find  you  out ;  for  stones  applied  un- 
kindly are  distinctly  painful. 

Big  people  have  always  entirely  fol- 
lowed their  own  inclinations.  Why  should 
one  remember  the  names  of  people  who  do 
what  everyone  else  does?  To  break  a  law 
with  success  is  to  be  illustrious. 

But  still,  what  laws  are  there  for  me  to 
break — or  what  have  I  the  brains  to  break 
— without  being  caught?  It  takes  quite 
an  unusual  order  of  intelligence  to  be  able 
to  Tob  a  bank  successfully,  for  instance. 
To  be  what  is  honest  takes  no  intelligence 
at  all.  The  majority  of  people  are  forced 
to  be  honest. 

My  mind  shuddered  just  a  b'ttle  before 

the  mood  of  Moscow,  before  the  colouring 

that  tempts  the  mind  to  forgotten  phases 

of  infinite  license,  before  the  blue  of  the 

66 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

river  that  gathers  it  all  together  in  the 
curve  of  a  bruised  arm.  Its  gold  globes 
create  another  heaven  over  the  city — the 
heaven  of  Moscow,  where  infinite  instinct 
spends  its  force  in  eternal  warfare  .  .  . 
where  "each  man  kills  the  thing  he  loves." 
The  light  over  the  sinister  roofs  could 
illuminate  just  such  things. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  each  man  kills  the 
thing  he  loves — to  match  his  own  dying. 

My  mind  is  dead  to-night,  my  flesh  is 
grey.  Everything  that  I  call  a  sense 
seems  putrid  in  this  desert  of  loathsome 
fact. 

The  garden  for  the  dinner  was  so  lovely 
—my  blood  always  swings  to  lights  and 
the  hum  of  waltzes — and  the  Russian 
bands,  with  their  barbaric  clamour  of  the 
brass,  put  effervescence  in  my  veins. 

But  after  the  eccentricity  of  the  dinner 
at  the  Spanish  house,  the  tremour  of  the 
67 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Spanish  dancers,  their  undulation,  the 
empty  sensuality  irritated  me;  for  what 
was  the  point  of  all  this  suggestiveness, 
before  people  who  hadn't  the  slightest  in- 
tention of  following  out  the  more  or  less 
indicated  action?  All  half-way  things 
make  a  situation  intolerable,  and  I  slipped 
away  at  last,  and  got  outside  with  Grace's 
maid,  to  be  with  propriety  again. 

The  men  at  the  tables  in  the  open  gar- 
den were  in  uniform,  some  were  singing, 
but  the  chiffon  over  my  face  kept  me  from 
seeing  them  very  clearly.  I  did  not  want 
to  see  them  clearly;  I  only  wanted  the 
charm  of  the  trees  in  the  stinging  air,  and 
to  hear  the  waltzes  that  crept  out  from 
every  side,  like  open  arms. 

At  last,  when  we  had  gone  down  into  a 
silent,  lily-bordered  path,  the  sound 
hushed  itself  in  the  trees  and  I  could  un- 
cover my  face  in  the  darkness. 

At  that  moment  my  body  was  tingling 
68 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

with  the  joy  of  it — the  wide  radiant  stars, 
the  smell  of  the  flowers,  the  damp  earth 
odour,  the  flickering  memory  of  the  danc- 
ing, the  sense  of  my  youth  and  fearless- 
ness, and  of  all  the  unpermitted  joy  before 
me. 

We  had  come  to  a  gate,  and  a  carriage 
was  waiting.  I  saw  the  glitter  of  a  sword, 
the  moon  striking  on  metal  buttons,  then 
with  a  rustle  two  women  came  down  the 
path. 

The  girl  was  beautiful,  there  was  no 
doubt  about  that,  but  the  life  was  wiped 
out  of  her  face  like  breath  from  a  glass. 

There  was  no  place  for  us  to  turn,  and, 
as  she  passed  us,  her  dead  face  went  to 
stone.  As  they  drove  away,  the  man 
dragged  her  to  him  and  bent  over  her. 

There  was  no  mistake — even  I  knew. 
She  was  marked  from  her  hat  to  her  feet 
for  what  she  was.    Her  skirts  had  almost 
touched  mine.    I  felt  slimed  all  over. 
69 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

And  these  are  the  realities  of  life,  this  is 
being  human,  this  is  man  and  woman !  Ah, 
if  I  could  tear  my  humanity  out  of  me! 


70 


PARIS 

October. — Paris  is  one  white,  nervous 
disappointment. 

It  needs  millions,  disillusion,  and  bad 
temper  smeared  with  an  appreciation  of 
Art,  to  care  for  Paris.  It  is  the  apotheosis 
of  the  theatrical.  The  shape  of  its  streets* 
its  unwalkable  squares,  the  bawdy  insist- 
ence of  its  lights,  make  it  a  very  good  rest- 
ing-place for  people  who  are  afraid  ttit 
rest. 

Paris  when  it  rains — autumn  rain — and 
the  umbrellas  are  up,  is  like  a  nude  statue 
with  a  hat  on — a  hat  on  and  perhaps 
gloves — gloves  with  holes  in  the  finger 
tips. 

The  huge,  treed,  white  Champs  Elysees! 
A  drive  only  fit  for  millionaires.  Anyone 
71 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

else  is  ridiculous  on  it.  And  their  ceilings, 
their  furniture,  their  life,  only  made  for 
women  with  diamonds !  No  one  else  could 
live  up  to  the  part.  Then,  afterwards,  at 
the  picture-galleries,  the  book-stalls,  the 
straining,  unreal  hungry  Art  that  looks 
on,  the  rabid  thirst  for  experience.  It  is 
so  unutterably  false,  this  search  for  feel- 
ing, because  nothing  is  felt  spontaneously. 
They  vaccinate  themselves  with  emotion. 

France  offends  me  by  its  long  white 
roads,  the  endless  straight  dry  poplars,  the 
bent  horses,  the  lean  dogs.  You  imagine 
the  frugality,  the  monotony,  the  patience 
in  the  houses — patience  under  dulness ;  an 
advertisement  to  the  gods  that  here  is  a 
corpse  eating  and  drinking  and  sleeping. 

Paris  displays  the  art  of  the  uphol- 
sterer. Loveliness  of  delicate  carvings,  of 
chairs,  of  mellow  vague  figures  of  women 
on  pastel  tapestries,  of  gilt-framed  sofas, 
of  the  trembling  of  Venetian  chandeliers. 
•  72 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

It  is  full  of  overwrought  discontent,  brit- 
tle like  the  grey,  broken  dust  of  leaves. 
Life  spills  itself  out,  in  a  gibber  of  lights, 
and  grey  statued  length  of  municipal 
stone.  The  monkey-men  on  their  dirty 
little  fiacres  prowl  unceasingly  every- 
where. You  feel  how  desperate  it  would 
be  to  be  poor  in  Paris.  How  desperate  I 
would  be  if  I  were  poor  in  Paris,  if,  by 
the  most  magnificent  fluke,  I  were  not 
driving  in  motor  broughams  and  dining 
under  Boucher  ceilings ! 

The  flowers  in  the  beds  of  the  Tuileries 
gardens  are  sodden  in  the  rain.  It  is  all 
grey  and  drenched  and  uncomfortable. 

I  am  only  happy  when  I  am  driving 
over  the  curved  bridges  and  looking  down 
on  the  bubbling  water  and  seeing  the  sky 
and  clouds  change,  even  in  this  October 
bleakness,  to  blue  and  violet,  over  the 
parades  of  stone  excess. 

But  at  night  I  Then  it  seems  to  answer 
78 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

to  something  of  the  name  it  has.  The 
whole  place  shows  its  skeleton  of  globes, 
gas,  and  electricity,  and  dances  and 
grimaces  over  the  river;  or  lies  with  its 
joints  spread  out  in  grinning  radiance,  till 
the  dawn  draws  over  it  the  hard  flesh  of 
buildings. 

Such  velvets! — butterflies  and  blossoms 
against  a  May  sky.  Lace  too,  laces  that 
are  clouds  and  spray  and  white  lilac,  all 
but  the  perfume  and  the  jewels. 

I  am  wondering  what  I  am  going  to 
plan,  how  I  am  going  to  live  without  all 
this,  and  then  I  forget  how  I  want  it  in 
the  honest  admiration  of  it. 

I  wander  off  alone  sometimes.  That  is 
when  I  enjoy  things,  that  is  when  I  own 
them ;  and  I  greed  over  the  Rue  de  la  Paix 
and  the  Rue  Royale,  all  the  more  because 
I  know  my  days  of  luxury  are  so  surely 
coming  to  an  end — next  Thursday  and  all 
is  over.  But  when  I  am  alone  I  can  plan 
74 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

magnificent  flukes,  intrigues,  dark-lantern 
adventures — stone  cellars,  underground 
passages,  secret  doors;  all  the  craft  that 
has  been  filtered  into  my  brain  from  the 
Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  through  the  House 
of  Usher,  down  to  what  I  have  heard  of 
intelligent  people  in  our  own  day  who 
have  had  brains  enough  to  rob  banks  suc- 
cessfully; combs  and  bracelets,  and  bands 
of  orchids  and  pansies,  and  ferns  mixed 
with  diamonds,  as  though  a  sudden  frozen 
wind  had  petrified  a  hot-house,  and 
sprinkled  the  flowers  with  ice. 

To  drag  out  the  very  gold-glittering 
soul  of  the  world,  its  thoughts  and  dreams, 
possibly  its  regrets,  its  unborn  stars,  and 
to  put  them  around  our  throats  and  make 
them  sparkle  over  our  hair!  I  feel  myself 
palpitating  for  want  of  all  this  frozen  sun- 
light, then  I  find  myself  in  the  Place  Ven- 
dome  and  the  column  over- weighs  me  with 
its  strength.  I  am  only  flesh  and  blood, 
75 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

and  these  stone  houses,  and  that  column, 
and  all  cities,  are  the  bars  in  front  of 
jewels. 

It  was  raining  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix. 
It  was  raining,  I  think,  all  over  the  world. 
The  universe  was  ribbed  in  muddy  grey. 

Saturday. — Mirrors  are  a  premonition 
of  Hell.  The  gallery  of  Versailles,  with 
its  weeping  windows  of  pale  trees,  and 
slow  panels  of  processions  of  Myself — 
the  thing  I  have  to  fight  destiny  with. 

I  wondered  if  the  floor  wouldn't  swell 
away  in  the  waves  of  its  slipperiness  from 
my  skirts.  I  tried  to  walk  softly.  Na- 
poleon had  been  there,  Louis  le  Grand, 
Marie  Antoinette.  My  silk  ruffles  slid 
along  with  a  little,  sibilant  hiss  till  I  drew 
them  up  and  faced  myself,  white  and  over- 
wrought, in  one  of  the  mirrors. 

The  whole  of  the  past — crime,  magnifi- 
76 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

cence,  history — pressed  over  it,  and  I  was 
so  insignificant,  so  new,  so  pretty!  The 
very  trees  under  their  gruesome  rain  were 
stately,  had  meaning,  had  memories, 
meant  something.  And  I  was  nothing. 
I  had  only  youth  and  life  and  the  power 
to  dare  anything  I  liked:  but  to  dare 
would  use  up  so  much  energy. 

The  French  moods  all  make  you 
gloomy,  the  spasms  of  Rousseau  with  his 
detestable  Houdetot,  the  crucifixions  of 
Huysmans,  the  drunkenness  of  Verlaine. 
Even  the  butterfly  dust  of  the  gayest  of 
Maupassant  is  scattered  at  last  in  a  mad- 
house. There  one  seems  to  drag  oneself 
out  of  Bastille  cabriolets,  to  see  the 
venomous  red  of  the  revolutionary  cap. 
The  Monna  Lisa  is  appropriately  in 
Paris.  She,  too,  is  disillusioned  and  looks 
out  on  her  world  with  the  safe  sneer  of  a 
77 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

woman  who  sees  the  joke.    But  I  don't 
want  to  see  the  joke — just  jet. 

Tuesday.  —  The  Salon  d'Automne 
makes  one  tremble  before  the  possibilities 
in  men.  These  artists  must  have  had 
models  and  studied  life  for  this.  We  are 
capable  of  this — if  one  is,  all  are.  But 
it  must  have  taken  long  to  reach  the  sta- 
bility of  the  mood  required  to  put  it  into 
Art.  The  mind  shudders  before  the  im- 
possibility of  return. 

It  offends  me,  this  mood;  there  is  a 
shamelessness  in  the  trees,  a  vagrance  in 
the  lights,  chrome-white  bodies  against 
hard  pastels  of  vermilion  and  sepia.  You 
feel  the  growing  prurience  under  the  thick 
flesh.  The  women  sprawl  everywhere; 
there  are  no  men.  These  are  women;  I 
am  a  woman.  What  suggested  to  these 
artists  that  women  thought  like  that?  You 
begin  to  look  to  see  if  the  lace  of  a 
78 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

woman's  petticoat  is  not  patterned  with 
toads,  and  if  it  is  not  the  pulse  of  a  bat's 
wing  that  is  making  the  rise  and  fall  of 
her  surpliced  fichu.  People  don't  think 
in  terms  of  the  Exposition  d'Automne.  A 
suggestiveness  that  makes  the  body  all 
finger  tips,  the  body  of  feeling  without 
nerves,  without  the  brain  to  picture  it. 
The  love  without  nerves — the  love  of 
idiots,  of  the  insane. 

God  of  misery,  why  are  we  beasts  with 
minds? 


LONDON 

November. — I  have  come  out  of  my 
theatre,  I  have  left  my  concert,  to  face  the 
splashing  mud  and  the  dirty  omnibuses  of 
the  street. 

All  the  tapestried  fantasy  is  over.  My 
procession  of  powdered  footmen  have 
melted  away  like  the  chorus  of  a  comic 
opera.  Fact,  the  brutal  fact  of  money, 
has  me  by  the  throat,  thrusts  me  into 
Bloomsbury,  opens  the  door  by  a  house- 
maid, pours  hot  water  out  of  a  coarse  can 
into  a  tin  bath  tub  in  the  morning,  refuses 
me  carriages,  stalls,  champagne,  flowers, 
and  the  gentle  quiet  of  the  things  I  want. 
I  have  packed  away  all  my  pretty  dresses. 
The  long  trails  of  chiffon  and  crepe  de 
80 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

chine  were  like  sprays  of  arbutus  turning 
brown  and  curling  up  at  the  edge. 

The  house  is  full  of  Canadians.  They 
know  me,  of  course — everyone  knows  the 
Knowleses  of  Deans  Park ;  but  I  feel  like 
a  vulture  in  a  nest  of  canaries. 

They  consider  it  improper  for  me  to 
be  travelling  alone,  and  only  overlook  it 
because  I  am  supposed  to  be  an  artist. 

But  the  familiarity  of  the  standpoint 
suffocates  me.  It  is  the  mental  temper 
that  I  once  held  so  passionately  myself. 
The  social  code  of  Canada  is  contemptu- 
ous of  even  the  appearance  of  anything 
not  right. 

Cigarettes,  bridge,  cocktails,  the  very 
chiffon  on  my  dressing-gown,  seem  out  of 
focus,  immoral.  But  it  gives  me  never- 
theless an  interesting  feeling  of  being 
something  secretly  wicked.  I  have  com- 
81 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

menced  to  wear  a  black  dress  with  a  bunch 
of  white  tulle  at  my  throat. 

How  I  want  money!  The  Rich,  the 
Rich,  the  Rich:  they  can  take  each  nerve 
and  moment  and  instinct,  and  set  it  in  a 
park,  in  a  conservatory,  under  an  orches- 
tra, out  in  the  sun,  and  cheerfully  breed 
every  luxuriance  our  minds  and  frames 
can  demand.  The  only  limit  to  their  sat- 
isfaction is  the  fact  that  they  are  finite. 
They  inherit  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
Emperor  who  tried  to  get  around  his  limi- 
tations in  the  matter  of  suppers.  Only 
millionaires  live.  The  others  only  have 
a  more  or  less  satisfied  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, to  form  substrata  of  society,  so 
that  those  with  money  can  have  their 
flare  up  on  top. 

If  I  had  been  born  in  the  slums  I  would 
have  been  an  anarchist.  How  can  the 
poor  possibly  come  out  of  their  fetid  dens, 
82 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

and  see  carriages  and  flower-banked  win- 
dows, without  longing  to  seize  the  rich  by 
the  throat  and  choke  the  power  of  enjoy- 
ment out  of  them?  I  can  never  turn  aside 
to  let  a  carriage  pass  without  a  mental 
snarl. 

And  wealth  is  for  brains  and  the  brave; 
for  those  who  can  get  it,  it's  there  to  be 
had.  Those  who  haven't  got  it  are,  gen- 
erally speaking,  fools. 

But  all  the  things  I  want  are  barricaded 
in  by  money.  Life  is  no  use  to  me  unless 
I  have  them.  Life  indeed  in  itself  is  of 
no  value  to  anyone.  Why  should  one 
spend  existence  in  earning  money,  merely 
to  eat  and  to  have  a  roof  under  which  to 
sleep?  I  do  not  want  to  earn  a  living,  I 
want  to  live.  If  I  have  talents  they  are 
for  my  own  pleasure,  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  things  in  the  world  that  are  beauti- 
ful and  interesting  to  me;  why  should  I 
turn  them  into  loaves  of  bread? 
83 


.THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  very  fact  of  being  a  woman  makes 
earning  a  living  an  absurdity.  We  want 
to  be  consoled  by  all  the  lovely  things  of 
existence — soft  cushions  and  flowers  and 
lace  and  music — for  the  chain  of  our 
oblique  life. 

And  they  are  all  in  the  world,  they  are 
all  to  be  had,  these  things  I  want  so  pas- 
sionately, this  paradise  of  beauty!  No 
imagined,  vague  heaven,  but  living,  pal- 
pable things,  the  luxury  of  the  earth,  the 
quiet  of  mind  to  feel  it,  to  fathom  it,  to 
go  deep  into  it,  smothering  the  senses  in 
flaming  skies  and  perfume  and  voluptu- 
ous furs. 

I  am  human,  I  live,  I  am  of  the  world ; 
and  the  beauty  of  the  world  is  supreme 
and  I  want  it. 

The  poor  are  just  as  much  mutilated 

as  though  they  had  an  eye  gouged  out,  an 

ear  cut  off,  fingers  lopped  off:  as  if  they 

pnlj]  had  the  sense  of  smell  for  onions, 

84 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

sewer   gas,    and   the   nastiness   of   dirty 
streets. 

No,  no,  I  shall  live  completely;  be  ca- 
pable of  having  all  the  pleasure  life  can 
give,  or  else  pitch  away  the  castrated 
thing  they  have  given  me  as  life. 

Monday. — The  pigeons  in  the  court- 
yard of  the  British  Museum  are  like  those 
in  the  piazza  of  St.  Mark's  in  Venice — 
flexible,  iridescent,  smooth.  I  paused  on 
the  steps,  and  they  came  near  me  without 
fear,  making  their  soft,  cuddling  sound, 
their  exquisite  throats  arching  with  life, 
the  silver  feathers  glistening  in  the  wet, 
the  one  beautiful  living  thing  there. 

Human  things  made  of  squalor,  semi- 
poverty,  grey  faces,  ugliness,  crawled  up 
and  down  the  steps,  stood  like  noisome 
pools  under  the  mute  wide  stone:  but  the 
Museum  stood  open,  huge,  impersonal, 
85 


while  the  diseased  streams  went  in  and 
out  between  its  columns. 

Inside  the  reading-room  the  dust  of 
dreams  has  fastened  on  the  place  like  a 
cloud  of  mental  parasites.  No  one  is 
young,  none  of  them  will  ever  be  old,  they 
are  petrified  in  eternal  wonder. 

Kisses,  and  clouds,  and  the  music  of 
grass,  and  the  little  waves  of  the  sea— 
what  have  they,  or  will  they  know,  of 
these?  I  too  felt  shut  out.  I  too  am 
poor.  I  some  day  would  be — what  was 
that  phrase?  It  was  Tennyson  of  all  peo- 
ple— I  too  would  be  "old  and  past  de- 
sire." 

It  was  intolerable.  I  swept  out  and 
almost  stumbled  all  over  the  ugly,  wad- 
dling, stupid  pigeons,  and  telephoned  to 
Jim  that  I  would  go  with  him  to 
Claridge's  for  tea. 

I'm  not — old  yet.  Not  yet,  not  yet,  not 
yet.  .  .  . 

86 


I  am  afraid  of  life.  I  don't  want  to 
live,  to  prove  that  Life  is  unreal,  and 
that  dreams  are  the  only  truth.  I  know 
I  could  let  my  mind  use  my  life  with 
absolute  unscrupulousness  for  its  own 
amusement ; — make  it  a  dress  to  masquer- 
ade in,  wines  to  excite,  lights  to  dazzle, 
while  Mind  would  sit  aside,  like  a  grin- 
ning Chinese  god,  watching  the  effect  of 
the  differently  expressed  spasms  of  in- 
stinct. 

If  I  once  chose  reality,  I  would  not  like 
to  think  that  there  was  any  pleasure,  any 
excitement  of  emotion,  no  matter  how  for- 
bidden, that  I  could  not  know.  But  are 
the  emotions  of  humanity  after  all  so  ex- 
treme, so  intense?  Passion,  love,  honour, 
lust:  they  are  the  motives  of  Art;  but  how 
literally  would  these  things  affect  me  if 
put  into  the  shape  of  actual  days  and 
flesh? 

We  human  beings  play  the  children  to 
87 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin  of  the  Poets. 
We  are  led  an  absurd  dance  to  the  tune  of 
pain  and  desire  and  regret.  The  mental 
pace  is  set  for  us  of  tears,  of  stated  sor- 
rows, and  penitences.  But  it's  all  lies. 
There  is  no  trouble,  no  regret,  no  pain, 
but  what  is  functional,  physical,  machine- 
made,  automatic.  We  should  be  as  blithe 
as  the  beasts,  except  for  the  finger-  and 
tooth-ache  they  have  too,  if  we  didn't  de- 
ceive ourselves  about  the  permanence  and 
quality  of  our  appetites. 

I  don't;  I  know  that,  outside  physical 
accident,  I  could  never  have  what  is  called 
sorrow,  except  the  grinding  grief  of  not 
having  enough  money  to  get  the  beauty 
out  of  the  world,  the  joy  of  living.  I  even 
almost  wonder  if  it  is  worth  while  to  put 
the  automatic  humanity  of  me  into  mo- 
tion, whether  the  amusement  I  would  get 
out  of  it  would  pay  for  the  risk  I  would 
88 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

run  of  being  found  out  in  stealing  its 
strings. 

A  winter  fog  is  creeping  over  London, 
a  shuddering  fog,  trembling  with  phantom 
hands  that  wave  before  the  eyes;  shiver- 
ing with  ghost  faces  that  grin  in  the  bub- 
bling lights.  It  steals  through  the  iron 
lacework  of  boughs  to  fawn  on  the  leaden 
outline  of  the  water. 

It  is  hard  to  come  out  of  the  cloister  of 
books  and  music  to  the  raw  world  of  men 
and  women.  To  have  all  the  bloom  of  the 
world's  genius  rubbed  off  by  seeing  the 
realities  of  what  it  pretends  to  describe. 

We  want  to  have  everything  always  at 
the  fever  point  of  some  artist  who  has 
seen  it  when  it  massed  in  with  some  ex- 
treme mood  of  his  own.  As  well  see  in 
every  sooty,  suburban  train  the  railway 
painting  of  Turner.  You  suspend  your- 
self by  elastic  to  the  height  of  an  insptira- 
89 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

tion,  and  rebound  in  sickening  jolts  from 
cathedral  pinnacles  to  the  mud  on  the 
street. 

I  am  restless ;  I  am  consumed  with  rest- 
lessness ;  and  I  do  not  know  what  I  want. 
London  called,  and  I  came  back;  but  I 
am  stronger  yet  than  any  power  that  is 
forcing  me.  I  belong  to  myself;  I  will 
go  away.  The  adventurer's  blood  is  like 
that.  We  Colonials  were  all  bred  of  ad- 
venture at  some  time. 

All  Europe  is  waiting,  and  the  tempt- 
ing South — but  still  I  do  not  want  to  go. 
Every  new  country,  every  new  interest  for 
the  eyes,  alters  us;  and  I  want  to  be  the 
myself  of  to-day  for  a  while  yet — the  my- 
self that  knew  the  London  of  the  haw- 
thorn. 

Dear  London  of  the  parks,  the  golden 
river,  the  towers  of  St.  Stephen's!  But 
90 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

even  the  Devil  hadn't  sufficient  common 
sense  to  stay  in  Heaven. 

The  luxury  of  London,  its  strength, 
hold  me.  I  walk  down  on  the  Embank- 
ment, and  watch  the  red  and  yellow  sails 
dragging  down  on  the  sun-netted  river; 
and  I  wonder,  if  I  had  been  a  man,  what 
adventure  I  would  have  staked  for  the 
things  I  want.  I  would  be  a  pirate  in  a 
red  cap  and  a  belt  stuck  with  daggers. 

The  big  slow  squares,  the  mute  houses 
that  I  knew  such  a  little  time  ago — all 
marble  and  paintings  and  silk — the  lus- 
trous park,  empty  of  the  muslin  and  talk 
and  lace,  and  with  only  moving  masses  of 
huddled  sheep,  and  the  mist  wavering 
through  the  trees. 

And  yet  it  is  the  same  London,  my 
London,  the  velvet  sound  of  the  wheels, 
and  the  elusive  yellow  light,  as  globe  after 
globe  melts  into  the  secret  mist. 
91 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

It  is  all  a  theatre,  a  play.  I  wonder  if 
the  people  over  here  realise  their  scenic 
effect — that  their  lives  are  things  to  look 
at  with  their  castles,  their  titles,  their  tra- 
ditions ?  They  are  always  bending  to  their 
traditions,  and  a  Past  is  about  as  big  a 
drag  to  a  nation  as  it  is  to  a  woman.  But 
we  Colonials  are  always  impatient  over 
precedent.  To  remember  a  precedent  is 
to  remember  it  is  time  for  change.  To 
change — a  change  at  a  risk  perhaps — but 
anything,  only  change !  To  stay  still  is  to 
die.  To  desire  to  stay  still  is  to  be  emas- 
culated before  you  die. 

: 

I  loathe  London.  I  hate  the  rich  more 
than  any  Socialist  ever  hated  them,  be- 
cause I  want  what  they  have,  for  the 
beauty  of  things,  the  soul  of  things;  not 
just  for  the  mere  crass  fact  of  a  bank  ac- 
count. I  hate  people  who  have  money; 
with  the  part  of  me  that  is  everlasting; 
92 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

it  is  not  money  that  is  denied  me,  it  is 
life. 

I  suppose  if  I  chose  to  work  for  it,  if 
I  wasted  years  in  going  around  with  my 
hair  half  down  and  my  collar  unfastened 
— my  throat  always  swells  up  when  I  pre- 
tend to  think — I  could  get  it  if  I  would 
use  my  brains.  But  I  don't  choose  to  use 
them.  I  detest  my  brains.  If  a  woman 
wants  to  make  money,  the  front  row  in 
the  chorus  is  the  place  for  her.  Work  is 
as  unnatural  to  a  woman  as  virtue  to  a 
man.  Women  who  make  money  by  their 
brains  always  seem  to  me  like  the  unhappy 
monkeys  who  career  round  in  a  circus  on 
ponies'  backs,  in  the  futile  attempt  to 
emulate  the  appearance  of  a  jockey. 

When  I  go  out  and  see  the  carriages, 
the  motors,  the  women  wrapped  up  in 
priceless  furs ;  when  I  see  the  diamonds  at 
night ;  when  I  get  glimpses  of  the  marble- 
walled  houses;  when  I  get  the  breath  of 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

orchids;  when  I  see  carvings  and  paint- 
ings and  lace  and  brocade  that  I  want, 
my  soul  sickens.  I  love  it  all;  it's  so 
fathomlessly  lovely;  it  is  the  climax  of 
loveliness  that  man  has  made;  it's  all  the 
beauty  our  brains  can  conceive  of,  and  I 
love  it,  and  I  want  it. 

I  won't  be  shut  out.  That  is  what  life 
is.  If  I  can't  have  these  things,  I  can 
die. 

I  am  going  to  Monte  Carlo,  and  I  am 
going  to  gamble  for  it.  I  am  glad  it  is 
considered  wicked,  I  am  glad  I  consider 
it  wicked,  I  am  glad  it  is  dangerous.  I 
kiss  the  idea  that  I  shall  force  Fate. 

I  must  have  them — three  months,  six 
weeks  again  of  the  glamour,  brocade  walls 
and  motors  and  orchids,  costly  dresses, 
little  fragile  lace  fans  with  mother-of- 
pearl  sticks. 

To  see  Oscar  again.  I  can  play  it  again, 
have  it  again,  know  it  again.  My  blood 
94 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

is  flaming.  I  have  a  big  bunch  of  Parma 
violets  in  front  of  me,  and  the  window  is 
wide  open,  letting  the  wind  sweep  in  over 
me.  I  am  burning  with  fear,  desire,  ex- 
citement. My  veins  are  humming  like 
electric  wires. 

What  was  it  Lady  Macbeth  said — "To 
unsex  her" — to  empty  her  body  of  a 
woman's  nature.  Well,  I  renounce  my 
country  while  I  am  doing  these  things; 
while  I  touch  even  the  borders  of  black 
things,  I  denationalise  myself.  We  was- 
trels of  atavism  are  better  in  Europe  than 
at  home.  I  am  no  longer  Canadian. 

But  I  must  say  that  half  the  pleasure 
that  I  am  getting  out  of  going  to  Monte 
Carlo  is  because  I  was  brought  up  to  look 
on  it  as  the  climax  of  immorality.  A  rigor- 
ous early  training  is  necessary  to  impart 
a  good  deal  of  the  sparkle  into  life. 

It  will  be  a  hideous  world  when  every- 
thing is  permitted.  Our  nerves  can't  sup- 
95 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ply  all  the  dynamics,  we  need  laws  to 
break  in  order  to  give  our  vitality  exer- 
cise. 


96 


MONTE  CARLO 

December. — Beside  the  train  at  the  sta- 
tion red  geraniums  dripped  over  the  wall. 
The  sea  was  purple ;  a  broad  band  of  ver- 
milion barricaded  the  sky,  and,  as  we 
poured  from  the  train,  there  was  an  even 
cry  from  somewhere  of  "ascenseur,  as- 
censeur!" — raucous,  unchanging.  I  think 
that  on  some  who  knew  Monte  Carlo  very 
well  that  cry  would  be  permanently 
marked. 

Behind  the  station,  a  white  sweep  of 
steps  curved  up  into  a  garden  of  palms. 
Little  constellations  of  lights  glittered 
through  the  trees. 

The  horses  swept  me  up  the  steep  hill. 
Their  blood,  too,  was  going  fast ;  the  whole 
atmosphere  was  quick. 
97, 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  inflation  of  its  mood  held  me  up 
till  dinner.  When  I  walked  alone  into 
the  dining-room,  I  came  face  to  face  for 
the  first  time  in  my  life  with  the  open 
world ;  the  room  gaped  with  snakes'  heads. 
My  body  turned  to  flame  under  my 
clothes. 

And  then,  when  I  was  alone,  I  faced 
it.  I  could  be  held  on  the  spikes  of  their 
sneers.  I  closed  my  eyes  against  the  mem- 
ory of  how  they  had  looked  at  me. 

I  pressed  my  lips  to  the  carpet  as 
though  it  could  save  me;  I  clung  to  the 
chairs,  to  the  cold  iron  of  the  bed;  I 
sobbed  to  be  let  free. 

But  I  got  myself  steadied  enough  to 
listen  to  fact  at  last.  Why  have  I  dreamt 
and  theorised  and  planned  and  decided? 

What  was  the  use  of  thinking  things  if 

I  couldn't  do  them?     I  had  said  I  was 

ready  to  pay  any  price  for  what  I  wanted. 

Did  I  then  lack  the  courage?    I  got  up 

98 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

and  looked  at  myself  in  the  glass,  at  my 
bloodshot  eyes,  and  my  cheeks  red  from 
the  floor. 

But  the  extremes  of  agony  exhaust,  so 
that  when  I  stepped  out  of  the  hotel,  the 
air  sweet  from  the  flowers,  the  sight  of  the 
palms,  silent  against  the  stars,  wrapped 
me  suddenly  in  the  quiet  of  its  beauty, 
gave  me  the  armour,  the  knowledge  of  the 
safety  I  carry  against  pain. 

And,  after  all,  why  not  take  it  more 
easily?  People  who  know  me,  or  people 
I  might  know,  would  understand.  What 
did  the  others  matter,  more  than  the  nas- 
tiness  of  creeping  things  in  the  grass  ? 

Have  I  a  temperament  blessed  or  ac- 
cursed that,  even  as  I  walked  across  the 
little  space  of  trees  and  flower-beds,  the 
perfume,  the  blue  radiance  of  the  sky,  the 
sparkle  of  the  white  Casino,  the  pulse  of 
light,  as  the  wide  doors  swung  backwards 
99 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

and  forwards,  lit  up  jet  by  jet  the  illumi- 
nation of  my  blood,  till  my  brain  and 
senses  were  glittering,  like  vast  halls  blaz- 
ing with  crystal  chandeliers? 

I  went  down  on  the  Terrace  to-night,  to 
wash  out  the  memory  of  the  faces — just  to 
blend  the  glamour  of  the  excitement  with 
the  beauty  of  the  night. 

The  Terrace  was  empty;  it  was  cold; 
the  lights  outlined  the  half  hoop.  Mon- 
aco was  a  fairy  drop  curtain  from  a  the- 
atre. A  lantern,  hung  on  the  black  line 
of  masts,  trembled  against  the  rocks;  the 
dark  cliff  with  its  palace  was  painted 
against  a  soft,  purple  sky;  an  icy  moon 
bent  over  the  purple  sea;  the  water  made 
soft  hushed  noises  against  the  stones.  It 
was  aloof,  restricted,  exquisite.  When  I 
walked  close  to  the  bushes,  the  wet  smell 
of  the  hawthorn — English  hawthorn- 
swam  over  me.  I  leaned  back  against  the 
100 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

balustrade,  over  the  sea,  and  let  the  white 
palace  behind,  and  the  trembling  sky,  and 
the  brooding  sea,  take  me  in  their  arms. 
They  were  Life,  Fate,  Beauty  incarnate. 
All  that  I  wanted  was  held  in  the  rooms 
poised  on  the  cliff.  Africa  was  just  on  the 
other  side  of  the  sea.  The  air  was  sibilant 
with  excitement.  The  very  palms  had 
fingers  that  quivered  in  the  grasp  of  the 
sky. 

Thursday. — This  morning  is  so  peculiar- 
ly morning — all  opening  out,  fresh  and 
undiscovered.  The  perfume  of  the  flowers 
is  so  tremulous  in  the  breeze  that  it  comes 
to  me  almost  like  a  laugh. 

How  absurd  to  bring  down  Nietzsche 
to  read  in  this  scintillating  daylight!  It 
was  just  as  ridiculous  as  all  the  other 
parade  of  pretence-life  I  have  saturated 
myself  with. 

Monte  Carlo  is  so  sincerely  false,  frank 
101 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

in  its  denial  of  all  naturalness.  I  feel  my- 
self rested,  because  there  is  no  strain  after 
effect. 

It  is  the  first  time  that  I  have  ever  seen 
anything  completely  itself. 

The  gardens  are  openly  exotic;  the 
Casino  is  brazenly  for  the  excitement.  The 

v 

very  birds  that  murmur  around  the  cor- 
nices are  merely  alive  because  they  happen 
to  have  escaped  from  a  shooting-match. 
There  is  no  poverty,  no  ugliness.  The 
flowers  are  kept  moist  and  wet  in  spite  of 
the  sun.  It  is  supremely  unnatural,  com- 
pletely satisfying. 

I  have  followed  the  artificial  all  my 
life,  and  now  I  have  found  its  temple. 
One's  mind  is  hot-housed,  under  glass,  at 
Monte  Carlo.  It  is  all  posed.  The  rocks 
are  grey  and  dusty,  and  everything  here 
is  gilt  and  filigreed  whiteness.  I  have 
found  the  climax  of  all  the  posed  moods, 
and  now  there  is  nothing  left  but  to  find 
102 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  climax  of  the  spontaneous.     I  must 
follow  the  natural  to  its  source. 


Tuesday. — The  system  went  wrong  last 
night.  Of  course,  I  knew  I  couldn't  al- 
ways win.  I  calculated  to  lose  one  or 
two  of  my  banks:  but  the  callous  raking 
in  of  one's  money  puts  a  despairing  futili- 
ty over  any  plans.  So  this  afternoon  I 
thought  I  might  as  well  arrange  for  any 
future  vindictiveness  on  the  part  of  Fate. 

At  the  end  of  the  road  that  runs  by  the 
sea  there  is  a  little  hidden  villa,  and  the 
wall  is  hung  with  climbing  pink  gerani- 
ums and  heliotrope.  The  shore  is  heaped 
up  with  big  rocks  just  there,  and  the  liv- 
ing sapphire  of  the  waves  breaks  all  over 
them  like  showers  of  white  chrysanthe- 
mums. If  one  had  to  drown  oneself — and 
it's  against  all  my  principles  to  remain 
alive — should  I  find  any  difficulty  in  the 
affair?  One  would  soon  be  brained 
103 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

against  these  rocks.  The  first  shock  would 
stun — I  didn't  fill  in  the  details.  I  never 
bother  my  mind  with  filling  in  details. 
Fate  attends  to  that  more  or  less  satisfac- 
torily after  you  have  given  her  the  broad 
outlines. 

I  went  up  there  immediately  after 
lunch.  There  may  have  been  some  faint 
feeling  at  the  back  of  my  mind  that  Fate 
would  see  me,  be  sorry  for  last  night,  be 
frightened  at  what  I  might  do  if  she 
pressed  me  too  far. 

But  I  was  going  to  be  stern  with  Fate, 
and  go  right  up  and  inspect  the  probable 
scene  of  my  probable  and  deeply  to  be 
lamented  death. 

So  young,  so  clever,  so  charming — a 
life  so  full  of  promise !  The  waves  sighed 
against  the  little  stones  as  I  walked  slowly 
along  the  dusty  yellow  road.  I  looked  at 
them  with  tears.  What  a  brute  Fate  was ! 
A  wave  of  perfume  from  the  flower-cov- 
104 


THE    TREE    O^    KNOWLEDGE 

ered  wall  came  to  me  as  I  neared  it — the 
heliotrope  was  shining  from  the  spray.  It 
was  a  well-chosen  place.  I  forgot  my 
high-heeled,  fragile  slippers,  and,  catching 
up  my  skirts,  stumbled  to  the  very  edge 
of  the  rocks,  where  the  clear  blue  waves 
pounded  in.  It  made  one  half  in  love  with 
death. 

And  then  I  got  the  fume  of  a  sewer, 
saw  that  on  the  waves  floated  scraps  of 
orange-peel  and  strips  of  melon.  It  was 
the  opening  of  a  drain. 

Fate  had  filled  in  the  details. 

The  superb  Terrace  and  I  have  it  all 
to  ourselves.  The  perfume  from  the  haw- 
thorn; the  smell  of  the  sea;  the  superb, 
trembling  sea;  the  low  trembling  clouds; 
the  sweet  clear  empty  air.  Nobody  but 
a  fool  like  myself  would  walk  or  sit  out 
here  in  this  intermittent  drizzle.  Such 
green  on  the  slant  side  of  Monaco,  and 
105 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  quivering,  swaying  mists,  settling 
down  on  the  mountains  leading  the  way 
to  Italy.  It  is  the  sea  that  touches  Africa. 
And,  oh,  the  smell  of  everything!  It  is 
the  perfume  that  goes  to  my  head  and 
compels  me  to  feel  it  completely — this  sod- 
den sweet  insistence  of  flowers  and  wet 
earth.  A  smell  as  oppressive  as  tube- 
roses and  musk,  as  intoxicating  as  the  reel 
of  air  that  fills  you,  as  you  stagger  up  on 
deck,  for  the  first  time  on  a  stormy  day 
at  sea. 

Nature  is  always  in  love,  and  I  am  tired 
of  philosophies  and  theories ;  I  am  tired  of 
acting,  of  living  up  to  the  inflated  disap- 
pointments of  great  men.  I  am  not  dis- 
appointed, and  I  am  not  a  man. 

And  yet,  to-night,  when  I  folded  up  the 

new  1000- franc  notes  in  a  kind  of  rapture 

— I  could  feel  the  lace  they  would  buy, 

see  the  houses  where  I  would  be,  feel  under 

106 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

me  again  the  purr  of  the  thick  wheels 
under  the  trees  in  the  park — it  suddenly 
came  to  me,  as  a  thing  I  knew,  but  refused 
to  say  in  my  mind,  that  really  all  this  mat- 
tered very  little.  I  had  known  it  with 
those  people  in  that  way  once.  I  had  a 
motive  for  repeating  the  scene,  or  else  I 
would  spend  my  money  on  luxury  in  other 
settings.  I  had  enough  money  now  to 
take  me  to  the  Orient,  if  I  should  choose 
that. 

The  Orient  of  myself  first.  What  is 
the  use  of  all  the  inconvenience,  and  re- 
stricted mind  of  being  a  woman,  if  I  don't 
use  all  the  opportunity  of  sex  to  give  me 
what  amusement  it  can? 

I  feel  myself  burking  it,  hushing  myself 
away,  in  the  liquid  jewel  of  the  night 
Mediterranean,  overset  by  a  brazen,  red 
moon.  That's  the  kind  of  effect  one  wants 
to  put  into  existence — this  passion  of  the 
cosmos,  where  even  moons  that  are  dead 
107 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

can  draw  the  living  sea;  and  we  are  only 
human.  I  don't  suppose  there  are  really 
any  incubi.  I  shall  have  to  put  up  with 
what  I  can  get,  be  satisfied  with  mere 
humanity:  complete  my  humanity,  much 
as  I  despise  it,  in  the  only  way  possible. 
And  Oscar  is  the  most  complete  man  I 
know.  He  is  the  most  man.  He  is  more 
or  less  a  brute,  and  he  is  so  remorsefully, 
so  almost  pathetically,  aware  of  the  fact. 
He  is  so  blatantly  masculine,  in  his  heavy, 
dark  ponderousness,  that  I  almost  feel  as 
amused  at  him  as  I  would  at  a  child,  or  a 
toy  elephant.  But  at  the  present  moment 
what  I  want  from  him  is  a  jolt  to  my 
mind,  a  practical  demonstration  of  Art. 

A  woman  really  cannot  understand 
painting  or  music  or  books,  till  she  has 
had  the  actual  experience  of  those  labor- 
iously concealed  things  which  are  evident- 
ly the  foundation  of  them  all.  As  a  mat- 
108 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ter  of  fact,  I  suppose  it's  part  of  one's 
education. 

But  considering  the  money  and — other 
things — I  am  going  to  spend  on  it,  my 
post-graduate  course  will  come  rather  ex- 
pensive. 

To-night  I  flung  myself  out  of  the  Ca- 
sino, and  fled  to  the  Terrace — my  Terrace, 
my  place  with  Fate.  The  moon,  the  trem- 
bling stars,  the  moving  sea,  the  blue  air 
and  blue  sky  and  blue  sea.  Monaco 
pierced  the  night  with  its  lights.  The 
palms  sharpened  against  the  sky,  and 
showed  the  stars  between;  and  I  walked 
up  and  down,  up  and  down,  to  drown  with 
physical  weariness  the  pain  to  go  back, 
and  find  out  how  it  was  going  to  end. 

London !  London  I  I  looked  at  the  stark 
line  of  Monaco,  and  my  whole  existence 
was  straining  to  the  velvet  lights  around 
Westminster. 

109 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

No  grey  South  and  bleak  hard  sun,  but 
the  gentleness,  the  glamour,  the  complete- 
ness of  London. 

I  am  sick  of  subtleties,  and  half- 
expressed  vagueness,  of  all  the  sym- 
phonies I  have  heard,  and  pictures  I  have 
seen,  and  books  I  have  read. 

January  15th. — It  seemed  so  ridiculous 
to  think  of  going  to  the  Brahms  Second 
Symphony  at  the  Concert  Classique — the 
Dance  of  Death  Andante — when  all  the 
time  I  knew  that  to-night  I  am  going  to 
play  for  the  last  time.  Just  one  more 
thousand  francs  to  get,  just  one  more.  I 
feel  already  the  cold  sweat  around  my 
mouth. 

But  I  can't  start  again,  once  more,  the 
slow,  long  climbing  up  by  way  of  ten 
francs  and  louis  to  hundreds  of  pounds. 
I  haven't  the  nerve  any  more,  I  haven't 
the  nerve. 

110 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

For  six  weeks  I  have  lived  with  life  and 
death  and  Fate  spinning  daily  to  that  ball. 
I  have  risked  what  I  am  going  to  risk 
to-night  again  and  again;  but  this  is  for 
the  last  time,  it  means  more.  I  can't 
watch  my  life  any  more  spin  endlessly  in 
that  inexorable  circle.  I  can't  hear  any 
more  "Faites  vos  jeux."  God,  haven't  I 
played  the  game?  Can't  I  rest  now? 

I  won't  play  by  daylight.  I  keep  to 
that,  though  every  nerve  drags  and  strains 
and  pierces  me  to  the  tables.  I  stayed  on 
the  Terrace  all  morning — leaning  over  the 
balustrade  by  the  steps,  tenting  myself  in 
by  the  frills  of  my  parasol,  but  seeing  all 
the  changing,  swaying,  moving  world  of 
the  people  stir  underneath,  domed  by  an 
oval  of  sea  and  sky. 

The  flower  shops  tempted  me  as  I  went 
back  to  breakfast,  and  I  bought  great 
bunches  of  violets  and  lilies — lilies  for  my 
111 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

room — the  perfume  makes  me  forget — 
and  violets  for  myself  for  the  concert. 

Then  tea  at  Giro's.  I  could  look  through 
the  palms  from  my  table  to  the  Medi- 
terranean, turning  violet  now,  with  little 
quivers  of  rose  in  the  air  above  it,  from 
the  sunset.  And  the  orchestra  there  played 
that  thing  of  Heine's — "Treu  sein  sollst 
du  mir  am  Tage,  und  mich  lieben  in  den 
Nachten."  Yes,  Fate,  I  have  been  true 
to  you! 

'Midnight. — I  have  won.  I  have  gained 
life.  I  have  won. 

It  is  real,  though  I  don't  understand  it. 
I  have  won. 

When  I  gathered  up  the  gold  and  notes, 
I  felt  as  though  I  were  gathering  up  rain- 
bow gold  into  my  hands.  It  is  life,  and 
this  was  the  price.  But  the  gold  was  real. 

I  walked  slowly  out  of  the  rooms  as 
though  something  would  hold  me  back, 
112 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

prove  it  a  dream ;  but  the  mocking,  unend- 
ing cry  went  on — the  doors  swung  softly 
together — they  closed  out  the  last  "Le 
jeu  est  fait" — and  then  I  got  to  the  night, 
the  living  night.  I  had  escaped,  I  was 
free. 

I  sprang  down  the  steps  at  the  side  of 
the  Casino  as  though  I  were  mad.  The 
perfume  of  the  night  gathered  me  up. 
The  heat  and  fever  and  the  torture  were 
all  inside,  all  past.  I  got  down  to  the 
Terrace — the  bland,  moon-green,  shim- 
mering Terrace,  Terrace  of  the  perfume, 
of  the  wavering  shadows  of  the  palms,  of 
the  translucent  moon,  of  the  borders  of 
Africa,  of  the  skirts  of  life  and  beauty 
and  delight. 

I  clung  to  it  as  though  it  were  some- 
thing living.  The  Terrace  had  held  me 
in  such  gentleness — palms  and  moonlight 
and  flowers — when  I  had  lost;  and  now 
that  the  play  was  over,  I  came  to  it  to  say 
113 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

good-bye.  I  kissed  the  thought  of  it.  The 
very  soft  cry  of  the  sea  on  the  rocks  far 
below.  I  ran  my  hands  over  the  balus- 
trade. It  had  cooled  them  when  they  had 
been  burning  with  fever  in  the  unrest  of 
the  other  nights. 

But  it  is  over,  the  pain  is  over.  I  have 
won.  And  now  I  am  going  to  get  the 
power  of  life,  grasp  it,  know  it,  plunge  into 
it.  It  is  mine,  my  life,  my  humanity,  my 
world.  I  am  going  to  know  all  the  joy 
that  living  life  means. 


114 


SECOND  PART 
THE  VOYAGE 


THE  VOYAGE 
FIRST  DAY 

THE  sea  trembles  in  silver  links;  each 
crest  is  caught  in  the  mesh  of  dawn. 

I  couldn't  sleep  any  more,  so  I  came  up 
to  get  into  the  vastness  of  it — the  dawn, 
the  sea.  I  feel  that  my  whole  universe  is 
staggering  in  births,  in  dawns,  in  huge 
lights  that  are  creeping  up  out  of  void. 
God,  but  I  am  frightened  of  life!  My 
love,  you  have  made  me  as  unknown  as 
the  sea  to  myself.  I  feel  part  of  the 
world. 

It  is  not  he  or  I,  but  Nature,  that  is 
triumphant;  this  is  her  ecstasy  of  success. 
Virgins,   perhaps,   are   the   dead  of  her 
117 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

world,  lost  spirits  of  life,  ghosts  that  flick- 
er out  to  extinction.  It  is  possible  that 
their  souls  reinhabit  the  pallid  vitality  of 
flowers,  or  seek  to  impress  their  form  on 
some  futile  creature  of  the  woods.  At 
least,  they  are  lifted  out  of  life  unchanged, 
into  the  mystery  that  made  them  out  of 
nebulae. 

I  seem  to  have  broken  into  a  new  world, 
to  have  been  caught  into  a  net  of  gold. 
The  water  presses  close,  like  instinct — the 
endless  craving,  unsatisfied,  unworn;  the 
eternal  youth  of  desire,  that  gives  the 
eternal,  futile  surrender. 

I  let  him  brand  me  with  himself,  to 
make  me  belong  to  humanity. 

I  had  been  with  him  before  in  the  Tem- 
ple, in  that  last,  marvellous  summer.  I 
had  seen  it,  and  the  fountains,  and  the 
mysterious,  luminous  shimmer  of  the  dis- 
tant river;  the  wide,  crimson  flowers;  the 
latticed  windows  opening  out  on  old  gar- 
118 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

dens,  veiled  with  the  scent  of  white  haw- 
thorn. 

And  this  last  time  was  the  last  day,  the 
last  hour  and  moment  of  Romance,  of 
Romance  as  it  had  been.  The  river  was 
struck  red  with  sudden  flames  of  the  win- 
ter sun;  the  sky  was  livid;  the  stones 
dripped  moisture ;  the  books  on  the  shelves 
looked  for  ever  closed. 

I  remember  I  went  back  to  the  window 
and  looked  out,  where  before  I  had  seen 
the  flowers,  and  had  felt  the  perfume  of 
the  hawthorn. 

And  he  had  been  silent;  he  had  waited 
without  moving, — he  had  waited  as  he  had 
waited  ever  since  the  first  day  we  met; 
waited  till  I  should  turn  and  let  him  come 
to  me. 

And  now  I  am  taking  my  new  life  out 
alone,  to  face  the  sea,  and  become  part  of 
me,  undefiled  by  the  contact  of  usual  life. 
119 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

I  could  not  endure  to  feel,  that  this  mar- 
vel of  what  men  and  women  are,  should 
decline  from  its  height  of  branded  sur- 
prise. 

When  I  left  him,  that  flaming  after- 
noon, I  could  not  have  stayed  at  home  as 
I  promised.  I  went  to  the  music,  the 
thing  that  had  led  me  on,  the  very  essence 
of  what  I  had  done. 

It  was  Brahms — a  string  quartette. 
The  unshaken  music  caught  my  flying 
nerves  in  steady  hands. 

I  remember  looking  at  the  people,  as  I 
walked  past  them  to  my  seat — it  was  only 
half  an  hour  before  the  end — and  wonder- 
ing if  they  could  know  that  I  had  just 
been  assisting  at  the  birth  of  music,  the 
very  heart  of  the  desire  that  was  crying 
from  the  violins;  the  meaning  of  all  the 
beauty  that  was  turning  the  air  of  the  hall 
to  the  vibrations  of  the  voices  of  the  cap- 
tured gods. 

120 


THE  very  waves  look  ashy  and  inef- 
fectual this  morning ;  even  Nature  has  her 
fatigues.  Life,  too,  does  not  supply  the 
setting  for  a  constant  tragedy. 

It  is  the  contrast  between  excitement 
and  ordinary  life  that  has  put  exaggerated 
emphasis  on  such  things  as  those  of  the 
other  day;  it  is  the  fatigue  of  nerves  ask- 
ing for  rest.  You  wouldn't  call  running 
a  crime  because  you  were  tired  after  it. 
If  nerves  could  talk,  how  they  would 
laugh  at  our  morals !  Imagine  arranging 
a  social  code  for  muscular  exercise! 

One  should  vary  experience  by  scenery, 
by  winds ;  by,  as  I  am  doing  now,  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  sea.  Then  it  would  be 
easier  to  balance  the  sense  of  strength, 
121 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

that  the  momentary  flare  of  creative  in- 
stinct lends,  I  suppose,  even  to  the  mean- 
est minds. 

I  am  tired,  and  this  sapped  daylight 
suits  me. 

He  assumed  instantly  that  the  affair 
was  made  of  the  personal  element.  There 
was  nothing  personal  in  it,  as  far  as  I  was 
concerned.  He  merely  represented  the 
knowledge  of  Nature  to  me — a  practical 
demonstration,  more  or  less,  of  cosmic  dy- 
namics. 

But  we  seemed  just  as  much  in  sym- 
pathy before;  he  only  seems  less  interest- 
ing, he  no  longer  represents  a  mystery.  I 
have  nothing  to  answer  that  grieved  look 
of  craving  in  his  eyes,  as  when  we  make 
a  poodle  stand  on  its  hind  legs  too  long, 
with  a  lump  of  sugar  on  its  nose. 

In  one  way  the  knowledge  seems  to  rob 
the  poets,  in  another  to  show  something 
122 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

they  never  suggested.  Unless  children  are 
the  object,  it  shows  that  the  physical  act 
can  be  no  more  important  to  women  than 
to  men.  The  climax  of  love  is  nothing. 
It  is  only  love  that  counts. 

And  I  kept  myself  so  immaculately 
pure  for  it — I  kept  my  lips  untouched  for 
the  man  I  would  love,  or  would  think  I 
loved.  Perhaps  I  would  have  enjoyed  it 
all  more,  if  I  hadn't  so  rigorously  denied 
myself  everything  of  the  kind  before. 

But  I  want  to  forget;  I  want  to  get 
back  to  the  dreams — to  the  dream  world, 
that  surrounded  me  like  a  globe  of  glass! 
You  can't  set  thought  to  the  abandon- 
ment of  Giorgione,  to  the  passion  of  Kun- 
dry,  and  find  yourself  satisfied  then  by  a 
kiss,  by  a  human  act  that  any  reptile  in 
any  pond  can  duplicate.  Can  you  picture 
the  rapture  of  alligators,  or  stoop  to  re- 
123 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

member  anything  that  mirrors  the  ecstasy 
of  rats? 

I  am  impatient  of  humanity  in  the  face 
of  this  sea.  Better  to  be  drowned,  to  be 
lost  in  the  power  of  the  ocean,  than  to 
drown  your  love  in  the  mean  outlets  of  a 
restricted  creation.  The  beat  of  the  sea 
on  the  sand — that  is  passion :  I  could  par- 
don submerged  continents  for  remember- 
ing the  yielding  of  their  existence. 

Still,  in  everything  that  I  have  had  to 
do  with  him,  I  have  been  weighted  by  the 
inevitableness  of  what  we  were  to  each 
other.  Instinct  gibbered  to  us  from  every 
tree  we  passed,  and  narcotised  us  in  the 
breath  of  each  flower  we  saw.  The  sun 
went  down,  as  though  weighted  by  the 
dreams  of  damask  July  days.  The  world 
phoanixed  itself;  and  I  have  to  cage  the 
new  ornithological  object — that  is  all. 

But  the  translation  of  an  emotion  into 
act  is  its  death,  its  logical  end.  I  am 
124. 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

another  person  now,  and  so  make  new 
emotions.  I  have  yet  to  find  out  whether 

•r 

my  new  self  gives  him  a  place  in  them. 
We  approached  it,  too,  from  different 
sides  of  impression.  It  was  to  him  the 
final  of  a  struggle  of  unrecognised  preju- 
dice— he  thought  it  wrong;  whereas  with 
me,  he  is  the  beginning  of  cataclysmal 
knowledge — the  knowledge  of  how  Na- 
ture makes  her  worlds,  the  motive  of  Art. 
And  I  must  say  I  think,  in  itself,  it  is  in- 
conceivably flat. 

These  last  facts  in  the  fog  and  cold  of 
winter  are  all  less  to  me — less  to  be  re- 
membered than  the  immaterial  magic  of 
last  summer.  That  is  what  it  means  to 
me — what  his  name  means  to  me,  what 
it  means  to  me,  being  a  woman  and  young. 
And  I  can  never  have  it  again.  No  mat- 
ter what  wonder  and  delight  and  rapture 
I  may  find  in  life,  it  cannot  give  me  back 

the  dreams  I  had  before  I  understood, 
123 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

We  still  carry  our  visions  inviolate  from 
eternity,  that  they  should  all  climax  in 
that  unhappy,  bleak  hour — the  smell  of 
the  fog,  the  ashy  white  of  the  dying  fire. 

There  is  nothing  in  it  to  remember;  no 
mystery,  no  pleasure.  All  that  I  have  of 
these  is  the  time  when  his  lips  touched  the 
lace  on  my  sleeve ;  the  hour  on  the  Terrace 
when  he  first  said  "I  love  you,"  and  the 
night  and  the  stars  and  life  were  made 
one.  And  all  that  only  means  the  secret 
of  this  winter. 

And  I  have  come  away,  left  him.  It  is 
all  fused  into  those  few  minutes  in  the 
courtyard,  the  yellow  rain,  the  iron  sky, 
the  eager  babbling  pigeons  fluttering 
through  the  wet.  And  then — I  came 
away;  drove,  it  seemed,  straight  into  the 
sea.  The  next  morning  I  had  sailed. 

The  Afternoon. — I  have  a  sodden,  dull 
126 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

sense  to-day  that  perhaps  it  is  all  raving 
against  windmills;  that  the  world  easily 
and  silently  has  gone  on  its  subjective 
manner,  and  done  all  those  things  which 
I,  in  a  gasped  surprised  mood,  at  last 
surmise  exist.  I  have  had  suddenly  to 
realise  my  language. 

I  sit  and  look  at  the  words  Chastity, 
Honour,  Virginity,  Passion,  Love.  I  have 
played  with  all,  and  tried  all  their  power, 
and  yet  the  world  swings  on,  from  getting 
up  to  bed-time,  in  perfect,  normal  sim- 
plicity. I  sit  down  with  calmness,  and  am 
conscious  of  enjoying  my  breakfast. 
Marianna,  Elaine,  Isolde — they  managed 
things  better. 

It  is  destructive  of  its  value  as  an  artis- 
tic factor,  to  meditate  on  the  exact  emo- 
tional quality  of  your  virginity,  while  you 
are  devouring  toast  and  eating  a  soft- 
boiled  egg. 

127 


THIRD  DAY 

THE  only  pause  we  want  in  life  is  in 
voyages  like  this,  when  we  can  measure 
our  memories  with  big  forces  and  cross  to 
fresh  worlds,  new  motives  of  ourselves, 
unknown  effects. 

If  I  could  only  call  up  the  ghosts  of  the 
people  I  would  have  liked  to  know: 
Julian,  Wilde,  Da  Vinci,  Rabelais — what 
men,  what  lovers !  Women  only  penetrate 
into  life  to  the  extent  of  the  different  ef- 
fects they  get  from  men ;  and  so,  of  course, 
variety  in  our  sources  of  emotion  is  our 
most  direct  way  of  learning  things. 

We  are  not  brains;  we  are  only  func- 
tions with  sufficient  intellect  to  fit  the 
needs  of  the  life  of  our  time.  Our  minds 
have  to  be  vitalised.  A  woman's  whole 
128 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

view  of  life  is  biased  for  the  time  being 
by  the  man  with  whom  she  is  intimate. 
If  the  man  is  clever,  it  makes  a  window 
into  distant  things,  that  could  not  be  re- 
alised by  a  woman  with  just  her  own  brain 
alone;  and,  naturally,  the  greater  num- 
ber of  clever  men  she  knows  in  this  way, 
the  larger  the  outlook  she  gains  on  ex- 
istence. 

Knowledge,  anyway,  is  merely  the 
power  of  comparison;  we  would  never 
have  had  Darwin's  book  on  the  Origin 
of  Species  if  he  had  spent  his  life  dissect- 
ing a  single  bug. 

To  make  life  yield  its  full  gamut  of  pos- 
sibilities is  to  be  as  great  an  artist  as  any 
composer  or  painter  who  pours  out  his 
vitality  to  make  emotional  pleasure  for 
the  world.  And  all  the  unknown  rapture 
of  life  is  before  me.  I  have  stolen  the 
most  difficult  key;  I  have  defied  myself; 
129 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

I  have  dragged  myself  past  the  guarding 
beasts  that  watch  instinct;  I  have  given 
permission  to  myself  for  everything,  and 
found  there  was  no  mental  penalty  to 
pay.  The  unexplored  world  is  open  to 
me,  of  all  moods,  of  all  countries. 

For  modern  women  have  to  overcome  a 
new  law.  If  we  know  anything,  the  laws 
of  so-called  morality  cannot  exist  to  us. 
They  are  seen  to  be  wholly  artificial,  arbi- 
trary, sops  for  the  masses. 

Our  extremes  of  self-consciousness  ex- 
aggerate personality  to  an  obsession;  and 
sheer  modesty,  in  the  woman  of  highly 
trained  mind,  imposes  a  barrier  far  more 
formidable  to  passion  than  was  ever  made 
by  any  code  of  morals. 

What  I  was  afraid  of  wasn't  the  thing 

in  itself — I  had  determined  on  its  moral  in- 

nocuousness — but  on  the  effect  it  would 

have  on  myself.     You  can  never  tell  how 

130 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

an  inherited  strain  of  accustomed  senti- 
ment will  assert  itself;  and  my  inherited 
tendencies  are  not  only  what  might  be 
called  virtuous — they  are  stark  with  puri- 
tanism.  I  am  possibly  the  embodiment  of 
the  revolt  of  the  savage  streak  on  which 
all  humanity  is  based,  and  which  my  peo- 
ple have  so  long  trampled  down. 

But  my  chief  feeling  was  one  of  sur- 
prise at  the  quality  of  the  thing  that  had 
made  most  of  the  tragedy  of  all  literature. 

Yet  that  was  perhaps  my  disregard  of 
the  imitation  quality  of  the  world  of  tan- 
gible things.  It  is  not  the  marble  of  the 
Apollo  Belvedere  that  is  real  to  us,  but 
the  passion  of  the  artist;  and,  in  life,  it  is 
not  acts  which  comprise  actuality  at  all. 
People  and  action  can  only  be  inflamed 
by  imagination  into  life,  and  only  live  till 
we  choose  to  forget.  We  make  search- 
lights of  our  imagination,  our  instincts, 
and  our  passions,  to  pass  over  unknown 
131 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

places,  to  disclose  the  marvel  of  things  hid- 
den from  us  in  the  mystery  of  fact. 

On  the  other  side  of  bread  and  butter 
knowledge  exists  a  marvellous  world  of 
permitted  curiosity.  Why  should  these 
things  be  closed  to  me?  I  have  in  my- 
self the  possibilities  of  them  all :  all  litera- 
ture only  mirrors  the  changing  impulses 
of  instinct.  Even  the  laws  of  Leviticus 
were  framed  against  things  done.  No 
one  legislates  against  the  imagination. 
The  Thousand  and  One  Nights  glitter 
gaily,  serenely,  through  things  unsaid,  un- 
writable, which  were  accepted  as  facts — 
laughable  facts — for  the  retailing  under  a 
July  moon. 

Yet  I  don't  want  to  share  the  flames  of 
Semele  as  the  price  of  seeing  human  na- 
ture as  it  is. 


132 


FOURTH  DAY 

THE  sea  is  a  glamour  of  iridescent  foam. 
The  ship  is  surrounded  by  a  whirr  of 
white  wings  as  the  gulls  hover  in  flashes; 
now  and  then  they  poise  with  wings  ex- 
tended, like  visions  of  the  Holy  Grail. 

I  suppose  we  must  all  serve  some  altar, 
and  sacrifice  ourselves  for  some  uncom- 
prehended  power — the  Trappists,  Devil 
Worship,  the  Salvation  Army,  all  to  ex- 
haust the  unused  vitality  of  men  and 
women;  Nature  insists  on  that  shudder 
of  energy  traversing  the  world  in  some 
way. 

Sensuality,    the    Cloister,    Art,    they 

throw  mankind  bleeding  against  the  bars 

of  sense.    We  cannot  feel  to  the  extent  of 

our  desire,  enjoy  to  the  depth  we  know 

133 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

pleasure  exists.  We  strain  and  shudder 
and  pant  before  the  possibilities  our  senses 
shadow  for  us.  It  has  all  been  said.  "For 
now  we  see  as  in  a  glass  darkly." 

The  boundless  power  religions,  creeds, 
have  had  over  women  consists  in  the  prom- 
ises they  all  have  of  a  future  life. 

Our  life  in  reality  is  so  short.  Just  as 
women  learn  the  value  of  living  they  are 
reduced  to  the  level  of  sexlessness.  But 
the  grateful  creed  seduces  the  mind  by  the 
unacknowledged  hope  of  eternal  youth, 
eternal  beauty,  eternal  pleasure. 

The  churches  are  warped  even  into  my 
life.  The  early  Nonconformist  church  in 
America,  with  high,  black  oak  pulpit,  and 
panellings  of  black  oak,  behind  the  seats 
for  the  ministers.  I  have  looked  up  at  this, 
and  felt  my  blood  shrivel  under  the  warn- 
ings of  a  physical  Hell  of  fire;  and  then 
my  eyes  in  weariness  would  wander  to  the 
134 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

grey  tablets  on  each  side  of  the  pulpit, 
with  the  Ten  Commandments  written  on 
them  in  gold  letters.  People  who  could 
break  one  of  these  in  actuality  were  some- 
how out  of  the  scheme  of  ordinary  crea- 
tion to  me  then — red  impalpable  figures 
of  immortal  Sin,  figures  wavering  in  a 
premonition  of  eternal  flame. 

On  the  Pacific  Coast  that  one,  white, 
solitary  mountain  dominated  the  river, 
and  the  church  was  near  the  river — the 
church,  with  the  new  mysteries  of  lilies 
and  stained  windows  and  gold  for  the  al- 
tar. It  made  a  benediction  for  me  when 
I  would  pass  it,  going  to  Chinatown,  to 
the  hall  where  the  occasional  musicians 
from  Europe  played — where  Alf  of  my 
romance  of  cloud  played.  He  would  give 
as  encores  the  things  he  played  for  me  at 
my  lessons.  Those  lessons ! — the  perfume 
from  the  bowls  of  daffodils  that  filled  my 
music  room,  the  glimpses  through  the  long 
135 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

windows  of  the  wonder-mountain,  the 
languor  of  Chopin,  the  intermittent  flame 
and  ice  at  my  heart . . .  those  biting  Chopin 
waltzes  and  smother  of  the  Nocturnes 
.  .  .  Schumann — he  taught  me  enough  to 
translate  the  complexity  of  Schumann,  not 
perhaps  quite  as  he  wanted.  After  the 
Nachtstlicke  or  the  Kinderscenen,  when 
the  lesson  would  be  over,  I  would  fly  to 
my  room,  and  turn  to  the  Book  of  Jude, 
and  kneel  and  read,  though  my  eyes  smart- 
ed with  the  tears:  "Ye  who  are  tempted 
with  the  temptation  of  your  flesh— 

I  thought  it  would  be  very  wrong  of 
me  to  let  him  kiss  me,  I  did  not  intend  to 
marry  him — and  then,  the  next  Sunday  in 
the  church,  the  majesty  of  the  service 
would  calm  down  all  the  half  pretence, 
half  real,  anguish.  I  could  kneel  there 
openly,  while  those  magnificent  prayers 
were  being  made — prayers  all  suited,  I 
felt,  to  the  tragedy  of  my  renunciation. 
136 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

"And  now  he  who  is  able  to  keep  you 
from  falling — present  you  faultless  .  .  ." 
I  have  forgotten  how  it  ends,  but  it  was 
very  beautiful,  and  I  felt  it  keenly.  But 
perhaps  Alf's  kiss  would  have  saved  me 
from  Oscar's.  I  might  not  have  been  so 
curious. 

Then  Westminster  Abbey.  The  churches 
rose  in  grandeur,  in  keeping  with  the  ex- 
tent of  my  emotional  crises.  I  have  no 
doubt  the  gods  play  with  us  and  provide 
adequate  settings  for  our  marionette  pas- 
sions. 

I  cannot  say  I  voluntarily  chose  West- 
minster Abbey  as  my  only  church  in  Lon- 
don, because  it  was  near  the  House  of 
Commons ;  but  that,  and  its  splendour,  its 
insuff erance  of  anything  known  there  but 
the  climax  of  emotion,  made  a  background 
to  that  phase  of  my  love  pose. 

"The  chapel  of  St.  Faith's  is  open  for 
137 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

private  prayer."  I  would  go  and  pray  to 
be  delivered  from  my  stupendous  temp- 
tation. I  pictured  myself  in  the  little  dim 
chapel,  as  the  marvellous  music  of  the 
evensong  service  raptured  my  soul,  with 
tears  over  my  wickedness.  I  couldn't  feel 
in  the  least  wicked,  that's  why  I  wanted  to 
go  to  St.  Faith's  and  pray,  so  that  I  could 
get  some  of  the  suitable  and  exciting  sense 
of  Sin. 

But  instead  my  heart  blazed  a  way  for 
itself  through  the  walls;  it  saw  into  the 
palace  opposite,  the  long  stone  corridors, 
the  stained  windows,  the  men,  my  lover. 
And,  as  a  general  rule,  I  went  over  after 
my  prayers  and  had  tea  on  the  Terrace. 
The  Abbey  was  so  convenient. 


138 


FIFTH  DAY 

I  LIKE  the  roar  of  the  wind  against  the 
cabin  behind  me.  I  like  being  safe  in  this 
sheltered  place.  The  storm  whirls  close, 
but  I  am  as  still  as  though  in  the  clasped 
centre  of  a  maelstrom.  One  does  not 
realise  the  sea  till  it  is  seen  in  this  mood, 
nor  the  sea's  power  and  the  winter  of  the 
air  meeting  in  a  mist  of  snow — a  Circe 
who  draws  near  to  the  waves  till  they 
are  changed  to  ice. 

It  puts  in  front  of  the  eyes  the  mood 
that  I  love,  the  unmatched  power,  the 
clanging  fury,  straight  from  the  limits  of 
the  world.  It  is  like  the  violence  of  our- 
selves of  which  I  am  curious,  the  great 
motives,  great  brains,  great  crimes,  the 
139 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

wine  of  the  world  that  has  intoxicated  hu- 
manity to  strange  abandonments. 

And  as  each  one  of  us  is  the  sum  of 
humanity,  crime  is  part  of  us;  and  if  we 
repudiate  it,  we  repudiate  a  part  of  our 
own  force.  But  to  break  one  law  implies 
the  mental  permission  to  break  them  all. 
It  isn't  easy,  this  cult  of  curiosity! 

And  now  I,  who  have  done  one  thing 
called  wrong,  must  try  each  forbidden 
thing,  against  my  own  unreal  point  of 
view — pick  them  up,  one  after  another, 
as  one  would  gather  the  weight  of  sand 
in  one's  hands,  to  let  it  slip  again  through 
the  fingers,  in  glittering  atoms.  It  is  the 
first  real  act  of  my  life.  I  shall  have  to 
measure  it  against  the  dreams. 

But  this  stripping  oneself  from  scruples 
is  a  man's  life,  and  I  don't  know  whether 
I  have  a  man's  strength.  For  the  gaining 
140 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

of  all  the  joy  of  life  is  audacity;  requires 
not  brains  so  much  as  fearlessness. 

I  should  like  not  to  be  afraid  of  myself, 
to  give  the  inner  thing  permission  to  get 
for  me  all  the  excitement  it  craves.  If  I 
could  only  burn  from  existence  each  weak- 
ness of  mood,  each  repugnance,  to  feel 
that  I  had  gained  all  the  extreme  beauty 
of  the  world,  the  limit  of  the  disclosure  of 
the  senses,  against  and  through  every  bar- 
rier and  law  the  world  can  enact. 

The  very  fact  of  having  no  money 
forces  me  to  adventure.  In  some  mo- 
ments I  am  almost  glad  I  have  no  choice. 

If  I  had  been  rich,  all  my  inherited 
blood  would  have  held  me  in  Arctic  re- 
straint. I  would  have  had  my  excesses 
from  Strauss  and  Velasquez  and  the  East, 
and  lived  in  frigid  contempt  of  the  palate 
of  colour,  the  scale  of  blood,  the  eternal 
fire  that  human  flesh  and  blood  can  give. 

But,  as  it  is,  I  am  pushed  out  of  dreams 
141 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

into  reality;  I  must  pirate  the  colour  of 
life. 

I  am  far  too  clever  to  let  myself  be 
found  out,  no  matter  what  thing  I  may 
do;  and  to  the  excitement  of  forbidden 
things  I  shall  have  added  the  amusement 
of  outraging  eveiy  law  made  for  women, 
and  getting  all  the  advantages  our  in- 
ferred morality  brings  us.  To  get  all  the 
magnetism  of  different  temperaments, 
have  the  money  to  travel  as  much  as  I 
like,  and  the  humour  of  painting  in  my 
travels  by  all  the  extreme  incidents  of  pas- 
sion; to  engrave  on  my  mind  palaces  and 
sunsets  and  the  tropics  and  seas,  by  the 
intensity  of  Nature's  climax ;  to  pay  one's 
way  by  passion;  to  string  the  world 
around  like  a  string  of  beads — each  tre- 
mendous city  and  country  the  keynote  of 
tremendous  things  called  wrong. 

But  Sin  in  this  way  isn't  the  act  of  un- 
lawful things.  It  is  the  curiosity  of  our 
142 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

own  temperament,  the  deliberate  expres- 
sion of  our  own  tendencies,  the  welding 
into  an  Art  of  act  or  incident  some  raw 
emotion  of  the  blood.  For  we  castrate 
our  minds  to  the  extent  by  which  we  deny 
our  bodies. 


148 


SIXTH  DAY 

THE  trouble  with  Othello  and  the  tragic 
people  of  the  world  is  that  they  take  them- 
selves and  their  sentiments  too  seriously. 
Human  beings  are  not  worth  killing.  We 
can't  eat  them,  and  we  don't  stuff  them 
for  our  halls;  and  so  the  objects  of  killing 
them,  as  far  as  sensible  beings  could  prac- 
tise it,  are  eliminated. 

Othello  was  a  beast,  and  it  shows  how 
little  we  have  advanced  from  the  brute 
pleasure  of  the  savage,  that  we  can  go  to 
such  a  play,  and  call  the  strangling  of  a 
woman  Art. 

I  remember  I  tried  it  once.    It  was  that 

afternoon  when  the  blankness  of  usual 

things  was  beginning  to  flow  around  me 

again.    We  stood  ready  to  go,  and  he  had 

144 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

put  my  long  white  boa  around  my  neck, 
then,  smiling  at  me  with  sudden  meaning, 
he  twisted  it  a  second  time  about  my 
throat  like  a  chain,  a  muffler.  "Now,  when 
you  get  home  you  must  lie  down  till  din- 
ner time,"  he  said.  The  commonplace 
solicitude,  the  quiet,  the  simplicity  of  it  all 
maddened  me.  Hadn't  I  just  inverted 
the  world,  set  the  universe  at  defiance, 
flung  my  all  to  the  gods? 

I  see  him  yet — his  face,  as  it  appeared  to 
me  at  that  moment,  his  heavy  overcoat 
flung  back,  his  calm,  clean-shaven  face 
tense  and  white,  the  half  smile  on  his  lips. 
But  there  were  black  lines  under  his  eyes, 
and  I  felt  from  him  some  mood  of  tragedy 
that  I  knew  he  saw  I  did  not  understand. 

"I  shall  certainly  kill  you  some  day," 
I  said,  choking  in  the  fury  of  incompre- 
hension; "I  think  I  may  as  well  kill  you 
now."  I  slipped  my  hands  around  his 
throat  under  his  collar,  and  dug  my  fin- 
145 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

gers  into  his  neck  with  all  my  strength. 
Strangle  him?  He  only  kept  on  smiling, 
in  his  ponderous  conventionality.  I  might 
as  well  have  tried  to  choke  a  statue.  I 
dropped  my  hands.  I  felt  like  a  fright- 
ened savage. 

"I  am  afraid  you  have  hurt  your  fin- 
gers," was  all  he  said;  and  then,  in  his 
superior  English  way  of  merely  doing  the 
proper  thing,  he  gently  kissed  the  palms 
of  my  hands. 

The  sea-gulls  wheel  there,  above  the 
foamless  water,  as  though  they  were  the 
vultures  of  thought,  waiting  to  devour 
murdered  dreams.  A  cry  comes  from  them 
now  and  then,  as  darkness  creeps  nearer, 
bringing  no  promise  of  another  day. 

Love  touches  the  borders  of  its  oppo- 
sites.    A  woman  gives  herself  up  in  ig- 
norance to  the  first  man  who  possesses 
146 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

her;  and  she  feels  he  must  make  life  aft- 
erwards seem  as  newly  great  as  when  it 
had  the  glamour  given  by  virginity. 

There  is  no  hate  in  Hell  deeper  than 
the  hate  that  balances  a  woman's  first  sur- 
render of  herself. 

I  can  imagine  the  pleasure  of  playing 
the  gods  to  the  man  who  has  struck  us 
from  our  world ;  to  send  them  reeling  into 
eternities  of  other  unalterable  things. 
What  he  has  taken  can  only  be  matched 
by  life. 

Still,  the  uncle  of  Heloise  understood 
better  the  shrewd  depths  of  agony  hate 
can  give.  They  are  deeper  than  any  grave 
could  reach. 

Revenge  is  the  one  immortal  passion  of 
humanity.  It  is  the  passion  of  the  gods — 
the  reserved  passion  of  the  gods. 

I  understand  the  savage  insensate  wish 
to  test  your  full  power,  to  wreak  your 
147 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

complete  strength  on  anyone  you  hate,  and 
have  loved — not  doing  it  hastily,  stupidly, 
but  to  run  the  scale  of  the  pleasures  they 
could  give  you;  the  excitement,  the  love, 
the  pallor  of  waiting  moments;  and  then, 
when  you  had  learned  all  they  had  to  give, 
your  last  gift  to  make  them  the  earth  of 
which  their  brute  bodies  are  made.  You 
transfigured  them,  they  said.  Well,  you 
would  transfigure  them  again — a  trans- 
figuration that  would  tip  them  over  the 
edge  of  the  universe,  and  leave  them  only 
fallen  stars  to  clutch  at,  with  their  grasp- 
ing hands.  Hands  you  have  kissed — well, 
let  infinity  and  corruption  have  them  now! 
One  may  possibly  be  a  factor  in  some 
stupendous  scheme  of  cosmic  proportion; 
but,  with  our  limited  knowledge  of  the 
two  eternities  that  gulf  us,  of  the  space 
that  makes  our  planet  a  speck  in  the  uni- 
verse, we  are  appalled  by  the  impotence 
of  our  own  lives  for  our  own  gain,  by  the 
148 


grotesque  humour  of  our  forced  service 
to  an  unknown  end. 

We  suffer  that  a  world  may  be  inhab- 
ited. I  wonder  if  each  grain  of  dust  suf- 
fers, as  it  is  shovelled  and  piled  and  dug, 
to  make  the  foundations  of  buildings  of 
men?  It  is  redistributed,  reused.  In  one 
age  on  the  summit  of  a  mountain;  in  an- 
other, slimed  with  vermin  in  dirty  cel- 
lars; and  again  it  rests  in  the  bed  of  un- 
fathomable seas.  Human  dust,  human 
agony,  human  impotence!  But  our  one 
marvellous,  princely  gift  is  that  we  die. 
Life  must  set  us  loose  at  last. 

And  even  difficult  and  hedged  by  Na- 
ture, as  it  is,  Death  is  always  open  to  us 
if  Life  cuts  too  hard.  Why  endure  what 
is  only  pain,  or — worse  than  active  suf- 
fering— the  knowledge  that  by  our  very 
temperament  we  are  barred  from  suc- 
cess? To  be  defeated  by  yourself,  to  see 
149 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

yourself  hopelessly  dictated  to  by  a  trick 
of  the  blood,  to  know  yourself  all  your 
life  at  the  mercy  of  your  own  inexorable 
impotence  to  carry  out  your  own  desires. 
What,  then,  if  Fate  has  not  given  you 
what  you  want,  is  the  use  of  your  attempt- 
ing to  struggle  for  it?  To  do  so  only 
means  the  chill  of  failure,  the  agony  of 
futile  effort. 

But  it  takes  some  strength,  too,  some 
final  courage,  to  turn  to  Death,  since  Life 
we  do  know — its  placid  sweetness,  if  we 
choose  to  be  satisfied  with  that,  the  can- 
opy of  clouds  on  a  summer's  day  across 
an  immaculate  sky,  the  smell  of  flowers, 
the  sound  of  the  woods  when  the  wind  stirs 
the  trees,  the  white  ecstasy  of  snow  and 
sunlight.  These  we  know,  are  sure  of. 
It  takes  some  courage  to  slip  out  into  a 
blackness  and  a  silence  that  may  be  abso- 
lute and  eternal. 

150 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Of  nothing  else  could  one  have  any  fear. 
A  God  would  understand  and  be  more 
just  than  any  ignorant  creed  of  man  im- 
agines. 


151 


SEVENTH  DAY 

HERE  in  the  stern  the  faint,  wistful  cry 
of  the  gulls  comes  to  me.  I  too,  like  them, 
fly  above  deep  waters,  and  follow  uncer- 
tainly strange  things  from  unknown 
lands. 

I  wish  I  could  really  feel  unconsciously, 
spontaneously.  I  feel  so  tired  to-day;  so 
physically  good.  I  want  to  weep  and  wash 
the  feet  of  some  idol  with  tears.  I  want 
to  repent,  to  kneel  for  sleepless  nights  on 
chill  marble  floors.  I  want  to  do  penance, 
to  strike  across  my  shoulders  where  he 
touched  them,  to  strike  with  thongs  .  .  . 
that  is  the  secret,  to  have  my  shoulders 
touched  again. 

Yet  forbidden  things  taken  for  their 
152 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

own  sake  mean  bestiality,  regret  about 
them,  weakness. 

•  •  •  •  • 

"Yes,  I  like  you  to  kiss  me,"  I  granted. 

"But  everything,  everything!"  he 
stormed;  "it  all  must  be  reciprocal." 

Reciprocal !  A  possible  thing  to  the  in- 
nocent woman.  It  was  like  the  hook  pro- 
posing reciprocal  sentiments  to  the  fish. 

I  feel  a  mental  pariah.  Shut  out  from 
the  accustomed  ways  of  thinking,  pushed 
to  the  edge  of  chaos. 

I  hate  the  world,  I  hate  humanity.  I 
feel  no  kindred  with  them,  only  a  sullen 
revolt  against  sharing  with  them  the  limi- 
tations of  our  humanity. 

We  know  there  is  Beauty,  maddening 
complete  Beauty  of  matter  and  sense ;  but 
some  film  of  distortion  is  drawn  over  our 
eyes,  and  we  can  neither  hear,  nor  know, 
nor  see  as  we  would.  It  is  true  that  now 
153 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

we  do  indeed  see  through  a  glass  darkly. 
Oh  God,  oh  love,  oh  my  love! 

What  a  fool  I  am !  That  wind,  and  the 
roar  day  after  day  of  the  waves,  has  got 
on  my  nerves.  There  are  tears  in  my  eyes. 
Still,  it  is  an  interesting  experience  to 
know  that  I  have  enough  of  the  usual  hu- 
manity to  cry ;  but  it  removes  some  of  the 
sentiment  when  I  know  it  is  only  a  matter 
of  the  never-ceasing  clang  of  the  sea. 

Sentiment  is  a  matter  of  the  adjustment 
of  some  nervous  excitement  to  some  phys- 
ical condition.  What  humanity  wants  is 
sentiment  undiluted  by  the  nerves  and  un- 
dictated  to  by  the  body.  That  would  be 
aping  the  excitement  of  the  earthquakes 
and  the  wantonness  of  inconsequent  winds. 

I  am  irritated  by  my  own  seriousness 

over  the  thing,  all  this  fear  of  reading  the 

things  I  read  before,  this  amused  defiance 

before  the  propriety  of  those  old  maids :  I 

154 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

am  breaking  myself  on  the  reef  that  in 
olden  days  drowned  women  in  convents. 
It  is  a  remnant  of  the  old  Methodist  train- 
ing. Yet  the  thing  itself  was  less  to  me 
than  his  first  look  that  made  my  eyes  fall 
before  his.  He  subdued  me  then.  I  could 
not  control  my  eyes,  or  the  tremor  of  my 
blood,  if  his  hand  would  touch  mine;  but 
this  feeling  now — that  hideous  hour — that 
hideous  hour 

I  could  trust  him,  of  course.  I  would 
trust  my  soul  in  his  hands,  to  place  it  in 
those  of  God — only,  Nature  has  failed, 
life  has  failed;  we  do  not  get  from  Love 
what  Love  promised.  I  do  not  under- 
stand; I  will  not  understand. 

I  do  not  think  I  ever  want  to  see  him 
again — other  men  perhaps,  but  not  him. 
I  had  thought  Love  was  so  wonderful,  and 
all  it  means  is  that !  Yet  I  loved  him. 

It  would  remind  me  like  a  blow,  like  a 
smear  across  my  face,  if  I  saw  him,  of 
155 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

all  that  life  fails  to  give:  we  loved  each 
other,  and  it  failed.  It  was  so  hideously 
blank,  mean,  beside  what  I  had  expected 
of  the  mystery  of  life. 

I  am  afraid  of  him.  He  claims  me  as 
a  right,  and  I  belong  to  myself. 

The  Afternoon. — Our  lives  are  only  the 
unconscious  products  of  what  we  have 
sympathetically  read  or  heard  or  seen.  I 
have  found  myself  insisting  brutally  on 
theories  that  I  discover  I  unrealisingly 
read  years  ago,  that  my  eyes  saw  but 
hardly  understood.  The  other  unknown, 
rapacious  self  grasped  at  it  all  like  some 
caged  creature  eager  for  food,  for  stimu- 
lant; and  I,  helpless  under  its  will,  live 
out  these  cloud  theories. 

This  inside  thing  is  the  Fate  that  makes 
our  life.  Our  body  is  only  some  ambigu- 
ous figure  of  our  dreams,  a  carriage  for 
it,  a  go-cart,  a  prison  van.  But  only  the 
156 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

rich  can  make  it  appear  fit  to  be  in  the 
beauty  of  the  world,  have  the  right  to  keep 
it  alive.  Every  one  else  has  to  prove  that 
right.  We  have  to  redeem  our  creation 
by  genius,  by  success,  by  tearing  the  gift 
of  the  world  out  of  the  hands  of  Fate. 
That  compensates  for  being  alive,  makes 
us  creators  ourselves. 

And  women — we  were  not  given  brains 
to  create,  we  can  never  know  the  triumph 
of  genius,  we  are  only  given  bodies  to  peo- 
ple the  earth,  and  gain  in  the  fleshly  crea- 
tion some  of  the  rapture  of  the  gods. 

I  have  no  doubt  a  mother,  when  the  new 
glory  is  still  on  her,  feels  herself  near  the 
Unknown  Source  of  life,  and  that  she  is 
part  of  the  powers  of  the  universe.  It 
probably  grows  early  dim,  this  ecstasy  of 
giving  birth.  The  woman  of  many  chil- 
dren does  not  show  on  her  face  the  illumi- 
nation that  marks  men  who  have  brought 
mental  life  to  the  world. 
157 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

And  it  is  right;  the  first  is  often  the 
loathsome,  always  the  unnecessary  result 
of  an  animal  hunger;  the  latter  the  fruit 
of  bitter  work  of  revolt,  or  defiance  of 
the  greatest  forces  we  know.  It  is  the 
passion  of  Prometheus :  a  child  is  only  the 
affirmation  of  an  appetite.  Yet  it  sancti- 
fies women,  constitutes  their  apology  to 
the  world. 

And  at  least  it  is  definite;  serves  an 
end,  however  temporary,  of  mental  dedi- 
cation; does,  however  feebly,  make  them 
one  with  Nature. 

I  stand  aside  and  wonder  whether  they 
are  wiser  than  I  would  be  in  their  place— 
for  I  have  no  choice,  no  sane  woman 
would  have  an  illegitimate  child — or 
whether  their  sacrifice  is  the  final  laugh  of 
the  gods  at  the  most  pitiful  of  the  things 
they  have  made. 

For  all  the  torturing  analyses,  the  flow- 
ered idealism,  the  superior  sham,  what  dif- 
158 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ference  was  there  between  his  feeling  for 
me  and  that  of  those  frankly  vermivorous 
things  who  breed  with  as  little  calculation 
as  a  toad? 

When  all  had  culminated  there  was  only 
one  thing  he  asked  of  me.  As  for  me,  I 
was  frankly  fond  of  his  kisses,  but  all  the 
climax  was  on  my  part  a  matter  of  cal- 
culated curiosity  and  the  hallucination  of 
the  first  time  he  touched  me.  But  when  I 
knew  the  reality — was  that  all  that  women 
are  to  men,  that  I  am  to  him? — nothing 
more,  nothing  more?  I  am  only  human, 
he  is  only  human.  I  am  blinded,  assailed 
by  a  storm  of  futilities.  Am  I  always  to 
shiver  alone  against  the  eternities,  sim- 
ply a  speck  of  the  womb  of  the  cosmos? 
Have  I  not  eyes  to  see  with,  lips  to  speak? 
Oh,  my  love,  is  that  all  you  want?  Is 
that  all  Love  is? 


159 


LAST  DAY 

THE  whole  air  of  the  ship  is  changed 
to-day,  the  serenity  of  the  sea  is  gone,  all 
the  mystery  of  fathomless  horizons;  the 
air  is  already  brittle  with  the  pettiness  of 
cities.  Everything  inexplicable  and  be- 
loved wants  to  be  put  away,  it  has  no  place 
in  all  this  practicality. 

Day — the    usual    greedy,    work-filled, 
light-seared,  sucked-for-the-future  day- 
is  licking  its  paws  after  these  night  months 
of  dreams.     I  can  almost  hear  the  clang 
of  the  trolleys. 

But  yet — but  still — even  yet  the  sea  is 
here;  there  is  yet  that  tremble  under  the 
ship  and  the  moist  sweetness  of  the  wind 
—the  mad  moist  sweetness  that  tempts  to 
all  the  follies  of  our  ultimate  dreams. 
160 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

I  am  afraid;  there  is  no  use  denying  it, 
and  I  am  tired.  I  have  to  play  life  for  any 
gain  I  want.  I  have  to  stake  myself  and 
every  fear  for  some  possible  benefit  that 
I  may  dislike  if  obtained.  I  can't  sit  idle, 
my  lap  full  of  the  treasures  of  existence, 
and  have  Fate  come  and  barter  with  me 
for  her  gifts.  I  must  instead  gamble  with 
the  gods.  I  have  only  myself,  and  all  the 
gorgeousness  the  world  has  is  waiting  to 
be  bought. 

It  strangles  me  sometimes,  this  rage 
against  a  force  that  has  dragged  me  into 
life  without  my  consent,  and  yet  denies 
the  things  I  think  make  life  worth  living. 

The  very  fact  of  working  for  a  thing, 
struggling  for  it,  sacrificing  the  laziness  of 
sunshine  for  it,  strips  it  of  its  glamour.  If 
you  have  to  spring  up  to  drag  down  to 
you  a  bunch  of  grapes,  they  are  certain  to 
lose  their  bloom  in  the  crushing  hold,  if 
161 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

not  to  break  into  mushy  nastiness  in  your 
hand.  I  shall  probably  get  my  bunch  of 
grapes,  and  shall  no  doubt  just  as  prob- 
ably only  acquire  a  mass  of  useless  pulp. 

I  want  to  see  all  the  world,  I  want 
money,  and  I  want  to  forget.  A  woman  is 
a  fool  who  lets  one  man  dominate  her  life 
when  once  he  is  her  lover.  History,  com- 
mon sense  tells  you  he  will  not  be  wholly 
true  even  if  mentally  faithful  to  you. 
Then  take  his  plan  of  life — live  as  far  as 
you  can  his  life,  and  get  his  unprejudiced 
point  of  view. 

And  I  am  afraid  of  what  I  shall  impose 
on  myself,  of  the  experiments  I  shall  make 
myself  make,  of  the  forcing  myself  into 
the  definite  pose,  of  the  rigorous  insistence 
on  the  complete  carrying  out  of  the  men- 
tal exploit,  of  the  stolen  freedom. 

And  there  is  no  use  trying  to  cover  up 
the  fact  that  what  I  have  given  him  has 
dislocated  my  whole  world;  turned  my 
162 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

universe  upside  down;  made  me  afraid  to 
read,  to  hear,  to  see,  for  fear  some  tremor 
of  remorse  or  pain  would  spoil  the  sun- 
shine for  me.  It  hasn't.  I  was  as  strong 
as  myself,  was  able  to  carry  the  weight  of 
the  thing  I  had  done  and  take  the  bene- 
fit of  the  larger  view.  But  that  doesn't 
alter  the  fact  that  it  might  have  paralysed 
mv  whole  life. 

if 

And  yet  I  suppose  countless  women  do 
the  same  thing,  and  continue  calmly  in 
their  way  as  though  merely  they  had  found 
a  new  fashion  to  dress  their  hair.  It  is 
an  enviable  temperament  that  can  accept 
the  facts  of  life,  even  if  given  in  a  slightly 
unusual  manner,  with  the  easy  confidence 
of  beings  accustomed  to  realities.  I  can't ; 
they  throttle  me  with  surprise.  I  hate  it. 
I  detest  the  fact  of  my  being  human.  I 
loathe  every  limitation  of  existence  that 
makes  us  the  joke  of  our  captors — acci- 
163 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

dent,   crime,   mutilation,   grief,   poverty, 
death. 

If  only  I  were  not  forced,  if  everyone 
were  not  forced,  to  go  on  living  and  mak- 
ing new  experiences.  If  I  could  only 
embower  the  time,  as  it  were,  and  sit  and 
remember  and  know  again  the  music  that 
was  played,  the  suns,  the  smell  of  the 
flowers,  the  words,  the  dark  glimmer  of 
the  river,  the  trembling  of  the  lights,  the 
stone  walls,  the  icy  tremor  of  the  moon- 
light, the  touch  of  his  hand  on  my  bare 
arm — my  cloak  flung  back — the  hiss  of 
my  satin  skirt  on  the  stones,  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  sun  in  the  park,  the  far  whis- 
per of  hushed  birds;  a  pool  of  red  rim- 
ming the  world  in  the  west,  the  perfume 
of  the  hawthorn:  "You  ought  to  read 
Jane  Austen,  and  get  the  English  view" 
—Jane  Austen! — Oh,  my  love,  I  will  go 
back!  I  love  you — I  love  you! 
164 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  institution  of  regular  meals  is  not 
only  more  or  less  a  pleasure,  but  it  is  ad- 
visable for  preserving  the  sanity  of  the 
human  race.  To  feel  yourself  in  the  throes 
of  an  immortal  pain,  and  to  have  sudden- 
ly presented  for  your  consolation  cold 
tongue  and  hock  and  seltzer,  is  distinctly 
conducive  to  a  reasonable  adjustment  to 
the  exigencies  of  daily  life. 

I  have  just  had  my  luncheon,  and  a 
luncheon  on  deck  with  the  sea.  The  real 
sea  flaming  about  you  is  after  all,  for  a 
moment  or  two,  a  thing  worth  while,  worth 
at  least  a  few  hours  of  pointless  breathing 
to  achieve. 

I  was  mad  to  come  away.  I  could  have 
had  the  travel,  ease,  music;  but  I  couldn't 
have  been  myself  and  stayed.  It  was  in- 
exorable. I  wanted  the  knowledge.  To 
have  wondered,  to  have  waited,  to  have  felt 
myself  depending  more  and  more  on  him 
165 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

for  all  my  groundspring  of  feeling,  would 
have  been  the  torture  of  Hell.  I  would 
have  delivered  myself  bound  over,  body 
and  soul,  into  bondage.  I  know  myself. 
I  am  the  same  as  other  women.  I  care  for 
him  enough  to  know  that  all  the  false, 
insidious  sentiment  of  centuries  would 
have  at  last  made  me  absolutely  dependent 
on  him  for  happiness. 

What  shall  it  profit — if  one  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?  The 
price  for  my  travelling  would  be  too 
heavy. 

I  must  own  myself,  be  mistress  of  my- 
self, have  my  emotions  and  pleasures 
ready  to  be  taxed  only  at  my  own  con- 
venience, to  be  varied  at  my  own  caprice. 
A  laboratory,  a  gymnasium  of  emotions. 
A  glass  of  poetry,  a  taste  of  music,  a 
plunge  into  instinct,  the  glamour  of  the 
sea. 

But  I  recognise  all  this  programme  of 
166 


variety  as  only  a  desperate  effort  to  keep 
my  head  from  going  under. 

I  am  lazy  to  my  heart's  core ;  how  much 
easier  to  let  myself  be  loved — to  go  with 
all  the  tendencies  of  blood  and  training 
and  instinct  that  call  to  luxury,  quiet, 
fidelity,  love — than  to  this  torturing  quest 
of  experiment.  But  things  like  this  have 
to  be  kept  at  extremities;  to  relax  even 
for  a  little  while  means  to  slide  down  to- 
wards some  bleakness  of  remorse  and  re- 
gret whose  clammy  agony  I  have  no  in- 
tention to  feel. 

This  way  I  am  free  from  remorse;  I 
might  as  well  regret  my  height  or  the  col- 
our of  my  eyes.  I  make  it  inextricably 
Myself,  and  I  will  go  in  my  search 
through  Life  so  far  that  all  individual 
things  will  be  too  hazy,  too  confused  in 
the  general  outline  to  let  me  regret  a 
charm  that  is  possibly  excelled  by  some- 
thing near. 

167 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

But  with  all  the  tortuous  agony  I  have 
gone  through,  it  is  only  to  learn  that  Art 
exceeds  human  passion.  I  could  have 
loved  much  better  if  I  had  stayed  with 
the  dreams  that  do  not  need  the  sense  of 
touch:  the  ideal  Love  was  generated  to 
conciliate  the  modesty  of  women. 

Yet  love  after  all  is  necessary.  It  is  the 
thing  that  translates  the  universe  to  us, 
the  insistent,  omnipresent  spell  of  crea- 
tion. Though  with  Art  we  can  say,  "I 
shall  love  to-night,"  and  listen  to  music 
that  would  ravish  angels;  yet  it  does  not 
come  to  you  the  next  morning,  and  say 
that  you  must  stay,  that  you  must  hear 
it  again,  and  again,  and  again,  the  same 
music  from  the  same  trumpets  and  drums. 


•168 


THIRD  PART 
LITTLE  HUNGARY 


LITTLE  HUNGARY 

Woodlawn,  New  Jersey,  April  9th. — 
Life  seems  to  have  caught  its  breath,  to 
have  moved  away  from  me.  And  yet  I 
must  live,  must  test  it  all,  go  through  it 
all,  set  all  these  pines,  and  the  scent  of 
them,  and  the  barbarous  sunsets,  and  the 
metallic  stars  to  some  motif  of  reality — 
infuse  them  with  life. 

The  very  scarlet  flooding  of  the  Jersey 
marshes  at  night,  the  jutting  flames  from 
the  monstrous  chimneys  that  plume  beside 
the  canals,  the  red  infernal  sky,  the  stripes 
of  reflected  wet  fire — I  look  at  them  and 
know  I  am  blind,  blind ;  that  there  is  some 
secret  I  have  not  yet  learned  that  might 
let  me  feel  the  full  beauty  of  that  trans- 
figured burning,  the  far  sky  and  factory 
171 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

fires.    I  strain  to  catch  something  that  is 
outside  myself,  unlived. 

New  York,  the  monster  that  lies  at  the 
edge  of  the  sea,  and  pushes  its  scaled 
length  towards  Europe,  is  suddenly  a 
skeleton  of  bare  cathedral  bones,  and  the 
stark  ribs  of  naked  buildings  open  to  the 
sky.  It  is  divested,  wind-torn,  hollow. 
The  sunsets  wave  through  its  openings, 
the  lighted  snakes  of  elevated  trains  coil 
about  it  at  night.  At  night  the  sky  is  a 
dark  pall  sown  with  sharp  star-points 
meant  to  hurt.  It  is  webbed,  vast,  like  the 
wings  of  a  bat,  horror-stricken  although 
the  sun  is  shining. 

I  feel  hushed,  baffled,  silenced,  held  over 
an  abyss  of  decision  that  will  make  my 
life  memory  a  regret — or  the  actuality  of 
new  knowledge.  This  is  the  real  climax 
with  women ;  not  the  things  we  do  but  the 
manner  by  which  we  forget  them. 
172 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

May  12th. — The  other  night,  when  his 
fingers  closed  on  my  arm,  the  sea  had  en- 
gulfed planets:  I  was  held  by  the  fire  of 
the  Immortals — I  was  Immortal.  There 
was  no  death,  there  wasn't  even  life.  All 
the  universe  was  burning  in  corrosive 
ecstasy. 

And  it  has  been  only  twice;  but  the 
other  existence  lies  behind  as  dry  and  dead 
as  a  crackled,  brittle  leaf.  This  was  life 
veined  with  blood  and  rounded  by  palpa- 
ble flesh — palpable  flesh — my  arms  and 
throat  have  yet  the  great  black  bruises 
from  his  kisses.  It  is  enough  to  tincture 
a  whole  century  with  love,  passion  enough 
to  create  a  universe.  I  hardly  dare  sepa- 
rate the  memory  of  it  into  the  different 
moments  out  of  the  great  flaming  shafts  of 
radiance  that  intoxicate  every  sense  and 
are  beating  around  me  yet.  He  did  not 
seem  human,  it  was  more  than  the  mere 
173 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

meeting  of  man  and  woman.    Life  could 
hardly  bear  much  of  such  ecstasy. 

The  minute  I  came  into  the  drawing- 
room  of  the  hotel  I  had  a  confused  sense 
of  the  crimson  brocade  and  the  gilt-built 
mirrors,  and  then  of  him  standing  by  the 
white  marble  pillars  of  the  mantel-piece 
and  fastening  the  button  of  one  of  his 
gloves.  I  saw  then  the  face  that  I  had 
seen  in  all  the  centuries  since  the  world 
began. 

We  both  wanted  to  get  outside  the 
radius  of  ordinary  life.  We  left  the  car- 
riage at  the  edge  of  the  slums  and  walked. 
I  think  the  angels  from  Paradise  walk  so 
when  they  come  to  earth.  I  saw  the  teem- 
ing thousands  of  humanity,  the  impish 
children,  the  filth  of  the  streets,  the  win- 
dows filled  by  hideous  heads  sprouting 
out  of  these  dens  for  air  in  the  hot  May 
night. 

174 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

His  voice  enticed  me,  led  me,  seized  me, 
swayed  me,  mastered  me.  I  had  met  my 
master.  I  was  conquered,  his  voice  walled 
me.  I  was  defenceless,  unresisting;  I 
never  dreamed  of  resisting.  There  was 
nothing  to  resist.  I  was  myself,  and  he 
had  always  owned  me,  always  had  been  my 
possessor;  he  had  always  known  I  would 
respond,  since  the  world  began. 

"It  is  in  the  cellar:  are  you  afraid — 
aren't  you  afraid  I  shall  murder  you  for 
your  jewels?"  he  laughed  when  we  came 
to  Little  Hungary.  Afraid!  I  would 
have  followed  him  into  Hell.  The  flames 
would  be  no  hotter  than  the  whirring  mad- 
ness that  spun  the  world  around  us  into 
fire. 

We  got  up  at  last,  he  and  I  together,  to 
the  street,  which,  even  though  it  was  a 
175 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

slum,  had  the  curved  serenity  of  the  night 
sky,  the  wildness  of  open  air. 

But  we  had  not  driven  far  through  the 
empty  obscure  streets — so  obscure  to  us 
that  we  might  have  been  in  the  midst  of  a 
desert — till  my  relaxed  mood — I  was  at 
the  end  of  my  strength — made  me  turn 
and  meet  his  eyes  and  tremble  down, 
under,  not  away  from  his  kiss.  This  was 
made  with  the  world  when  life  was  given 
from  God  to  man. 

Only  a  moment,  and  we  moved  apart — 
shaken,  tumultuous,  shocked,  with  a  feel- 
ing as  of  the  first  swoon  of  ether  that  lifts 
your  veins  into  rivers  of  light  before  it 
transforms  you  into  extinction.  The  stars 
slipped  over  us  as  we  moved,  slipped  under 
us,  dripped  from  my  hands  as  he  caught 
my  hands  and  clung  over  me  and  begged 
and  whispered  and  devoured  my  heart. 

"Stay  with  me,  you  love  me,  you  love 
me,  trust  me!"  and  I  swayed  to  him,  gasp- 
176 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ing,  as  he  crushed  my  lips — my  lips  that 
were  shaped  to  his,  made  for  his,  formed 
?or  him  to  kiss ;  and  then  a  carriage  passed, 
and  he  crushed  my  face  down  on  his  breast 
so  that  I  would  not  be  seen.  "Stay  with 
me,  stay  with  me!"  and  my  "No"  was 
spent  under  his  lips. 

He  slipped  down  on  his  knees  beside 
me,  and  drew  my  face  down  to  his.  "You 
have  never  been  kissed  like  this — stay  with 
me!" 

But  I  couldn't,  I  couldn't;  I  loved  him 
so  that  I  denied  myself  him  to  gain  him. 

June  3rd. — I  remember  the  long  walks 
past  the  pine  hills,  just  as  day  was  pass- 
ing into  night,  and  the  stars  were  coming 
out  in  a  blue  sky,  yet  stained  with  the 
sunset  on  the  days  before  I  wrote.  I  was 
willing  that  the  days  in  between  should 
pass.  I  had  to  grow  accustomed  to  the 
transfiguration  of  his  kiss  before  I  saw 
177 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

him  again.  He  made  me  real,  and  impris- 
oned my  heart  bar  after  bar  of  the  min- 
utes we  were  together  and  locked  by  his 
last  kiss. 

It  flashed  out  into  life  in  the  midst  of 
May,  part  of  the  perfume  and  wind  and 
stars  of  the  world.  All  the  dreams  I  sur- 
mised of  eternity  have  waved  over  me  in 
one  thunderous  night.  I  have  got  the 
best  out  of  life  that  life  can  give.  I  was 
satisfied  with  the  measure  of  the  hour;  the 
future  did  not  exist,  there  had  been  no 
past. 

We  could  see  the  trees  in  the  square 
from  the  deep  windows  of  the  room,  the 
stars  hung  like  pendants  of  pink  rubies 
in  the  luminous  air.  There  was  no  wind, 
the  transparent  green  leaves  were  motion- 
less, and  between  the  grass  and  the  sky 
pierced  the  molten  shaft  of  electric  light 
178 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

moving  and  feeling  the  darkness  with  its 
sharp  edges. 

He  stormed  at  me,  battled  with  me, 
laughed  at  me,  struggled  with  me;  I  was 
bewildered,  tired,  broken.  I  burst  out 
crying,  and  flung  my  arms  on  the  table 
and  buried  my  face  in  my  arms. 

No  matter  what  life  could  do  or  deny, 
it  cannot  take  these  hours  from  me;  they 
are  myself,  marked  on  my  soul;  are  my 
soul.  It  is  the  triumph  of  the  immortal; 
I  have  been  immortal;  I  have  been  in  the 
eternal  fountains.  He  has  made  me  alive. 


179 


THE  HOUSE 

New  York. — I  had  to  keep  myself  at 
the  apex  of  feeling,  even  though  it  meant 
stepping  from  mountain  top  to  mountain 
top  over  unnameable  gorges. 

The  heat  here  subdues  you,  relaxes  you, 
maddens  you  to  strange  things.  Tides  of 
ourselves,  we  welter  out  on  black  seas, 
drink  from  hidden  sources,  find  shade  in 
secret  groves  of  unknown  trees.  It  wraps 
you  in  a  veil,  you  move  forward  blindly 
through  paths — any  path  away  from  the 
feeling  of  it.  And  we  are  the  gate  to 
everything.  The  gate  to  everything — 
ourselves;  and  I  had  thought  life  was  the 
mystery,  the  thing  to  be  discovered.  No 
matter  how  strange  and  fearful  a  thing 
we  may  do,  it  becomes  at  once,  it  is,  only 
180 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  expression  of  our  own  minds;  is  nat- 
ural, usual,  a  commonplace  of  emotion. 
I  think  our  association  of  mystery  with 
the  forces  of  Nature  is  only  our  dissatis- 
faction with  our  own  powers. 

Because  this,  the  climax  of  horror,  the 
altitude  of  abomination  for  women,  seems 
to  me  in  reality  only  the  lazy  translation 
of  an  Arabian  fantasy,  a  Balzac  Conte 
Drolatique,  a  Rabelaisian  mood  put  into 
flesh. 

The  mood  of  a  summer  afternoon  when 
the  hammock  yields  to  you,  and  the  per- 
fume of  the  wallflowers  and  the  lilies  sub- 
dues you.  An  afternoon  when  you  swing 
between  the  trees,  and  see  the  fields  yellow, 
warm,  swelling  in  the  golden  mist;  are 
held  by  the  languid  calls  of  the  birds  and 
the  vague  scent  of  the  coming  night. 

It  has,  too,  all  the  humour  of  the  scien- 
tific sneer  and  disclosure.  One  can  watch 
the  worlds  in  the  making  as  it  were,  de- 
181 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

void  of  the  walls  of  sham,  naked  and  un- 
afraid. There  is  no  pretence,  no  affecta- 
tion, no  cant  about  the  soul.  It  is  only 
"I  want  you,"  and  creation  has  said  its 
uttermost. 

Poetry,  the  House  of  Life,  each  satin 
phrase,  each  catch  of  the  breath  at  a 
"thou"  of  the  "solstice,"  the  whine  of 
music,  the  blurred  dissatisfaction  of  paint- 
ing, are  set  simple,  and  washed  of  the 
birth-stain  of  unreal  desire  in  the  clear 
light  of  untempered  humanity.  It  ex- 
presses itself  variously,  it  has  its  grada- 
tions, its  beauties,  and  its  ugliness;  but 
the  fact,  the  undiluted  brutal  dominating 
fact,  is  there  undefiled.  Even  the  Devil 
would  be  blackened  if  he  pretended  to 
want  only  one  individual  in  his  Hell. 

I  am  not  shocked,  I  am  not  disgusted, 
I  am  only  intensely  interested  and  occa- 
sionally amused.     Of  course,  neither  the 
182 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

men  nor  women  are  quite  real  to  me,  they 
flicker  around  me  like  the  disclosed  dances 
of  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries. 

They  recognise  me  as  of  another  world. 
Yet  it  is  much  the  same  luxury,  the  same 
costly  dresses,  the  same  heady  scent  of 
flowers  and  wine. 

I  would  walk  over  fire  to  get  what  I 
wanted,  and  so  I  stake  myself  for  what  I 
want.  I  do  not  intend  to  be  found  out, 
and  whatever  flesh  and  blood  I  have  be- 
longs to  myself.  I  shall  do  what  I  like 
with  it,  it  is  my  only  bank  account. 

If  I  went  into  a  Zoo,  and  everything 
commenced  to  talk,  or  if  a  dream  should 
persist  into  the  day,  it  could  not  seem  more 
fictitious  than  this.  I  trail  my  long  dress 
through  the  long  rooms  and  smile  at  my- 
self curiously,  admiringly,  in  the  long 
mirrors.  It  is  unquestionably  brave,  it 
has  taken  overwhelming  courage  to  come 
here.  But  how  shudderingly  unnatural 
183 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

it  seems  to  use  the  inherited  pluck  of 
fighting  men  to  face  the  bathos  of  this! 
But  I  must  use  all  I  am  to  conquer,  to 
win;  even  though  I  may  throw  it  away 
after,  let  it  fall  through  my  hands  like 
drops  of  water.  To  have  power,  to  see 
all  the  glory  the  world  has,  to  be  able  to 
buy  all  its  beauty,  to  have  the  power  to 
destroy  what  I  may  hate. 

Opal  Pendant. — This  morning  at  four 
o'clock  the  drawing-room  seemed  close 
and  heavy,  the  air  was  full  of  the  smell  of 
champagne  and  the  odour  of  the  bowl  of 
big  pink  roses  fading  in  the  heat.  Both 
the  lace  and  the  silk  curtains  were  drawn 
across  the  windows  and  all  the  lights  were 
blazing.  Then  Billie  went  to  one  of  the 
windows  and  dragged  back  the  curtains. 
"The  rosy-fingered,"  he  laughed,  "the 
rosy-fingered  is  almost  here" ;  and  then  he 
came  and  begged  me  to  go  with  him  to 
184 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

meet  the  rosy-fingered — there — at  four  in 
the  morning.  The  idea  struck  me. 

His  motor  was  waiting  at  the  door,  so  I 
went  with  him  to  the  park.  The  flowers 
and  shrubs  and  trees  were  raising  them- 
selves under  the  tingling  sweetness  of  new 
day,  the  world  was  opening  out  and 
stretching  up  its  arms  to  the  coming  light. 

Squirrels  would  sometimes  jump  across 
the  path,  and  once  a  bat  whirred  out  of  the 
shadow  of  a  pine,  and  drifted  down  into 
the  deeper  darkness  of  a  gorge  on  the 
other  side  of  our  way. 

Billie  showed  me  a  little  hill  we  had  to 
go  down,  and  then  something  was  dis- 
closed, the  opening  of  a  veil  of  leaves,  to 
show  a  memory,  a  desire,  a  vision  of  the 
Orient.  A  tiny  lake  covered  by  the  wide 
leaves  of  the  lotus,  fringed  by  their  uneven 
stalks,  and  studded  by  the  immaculate 
huge  lilies  that  held  the  air  in  their  fra- 
grance. Great  lilies,  that  made  the  barge 
185 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

of  Cleopatra  pause,  that  led  to  the  land  of 
dreams.  The  sky  at  first  was  weak,  you 
might  think,  before  the  desire  of  the  sun, 
and  then  it  flushed,  lightened,  wavered, 
and  turned  to  tremulous  radiance  in  the 
glamour  of  the  completed  dawn.  The 
light  startled  a  crane  in  the  reeds  of  the 
furthest  bank,  and  it  started  up  with  a 
discordant  cry,  and,  with  its  pointed  wings 
stretched  out,  flew  straight  across  the  lotus 
lake. 

"The  Lotus-eaters — the  world  forgot- 
ten!" I  cried  to  Billie,  and  he  caught  my 
hands  and  tried  to  kiss  them;  but,  as  far 
as  I  was  concerned,  Billie  didn't  exist  for 
me.  A  hand  had  crept  into  my  mind  and 
closed  on  it  with  talons — the  Orient — the 
smell  of  the  pungent  mystery  of  the  East, 
the  yellow  skies,  the  spiked  trees  and  en- 
tangled flowers.  I  must  have  the  Orient, 
must  inhale  the  secret  of  its  untempered 
colour,  black  and  gold  leaf  and  Imperial 
186 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

yellow,  the  tortuous  ivories,  the  oblique 
reserve,  the  domination  of  the  white  blood. 

Nine  o'clock  p.m. — This  life  has  not 
changed  me,  it  has  only  brought  into  being 
traits  of  me  that  otherwise  would  have 
lain  dormant. 

I  gird  myself  in  quiet  for  fear  I  shall 
betray  the  fact  that  I  am  amused.  I  drop 
my  eyes  to  conceal  the  springing  of  life 
that  answers  from  me  here,  as  to  the  sway- 
ing with  the  roulette  wheel  at  Monte  Car- 
lo. Here  are  the  beginnings  of  all  ulti- 
mate passions,  finalities,  the  limits  of 
humanity.  Strange  awful  things  and 
secrets  creep  through  it — the  inversion  of 
Byblis,  the  caricature  of  Sappho,  queer 
laughs  like  the  cackle  of  some  of  the  light 
monstrous  stories  of  the  Arabian  Nights; 
the  opal  effervescence  of  drugs,  the  thick 
pink  petalled  flowers,  the  apes;  the  hu- 
manity in  me  chuckles  and  delights  that  if 
187 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

it  is  different,  it  at  least  understands,  sees 
it,  reads  it,  like  the  pages  of  a  Persian 
book — set  too,  in  silken  walls,  and  under 
gilt  cornices,  before  the  limpid  crystal  of 
wide  mirrors.  It  is  life;  I  am  life;  I  see 
it  all.  Nothing  is  hidden.  I  see  the  soul 
of  humanity,  squeezed  like  a  sponge,  and 
the  drops  of  its  animating  blaze  trickle 
out — not  viscous  or  black,  but  red,  healthy, 
vital. 

Either  your  humanity  is  greater  than 
the  things  it  is  capable  of,  or  they  are 
greater  than  you. 

Friday. — He  was  physically  a  fine 
thing,  though  not  the  type  I  like  at  all. 
In  the  first  place,  I  detest  men  with  a 
moustache,  even  though  it  is  small  and 
modern,  and  he  was  so  carnally  common, 
for  all  his  being  the  President  of  an  island 
in  the  Caribbean.  Hidalgo  blood  vitalised 
188 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

by  pure  Indian.  The  Indian  in  him 
crisped  his  hair,  brutalised  his  neck. 

Yet  his  exquisite  manner  was  like  the 
mood  of  a  Spanish  painting.  It  was  ab- 
solutely simple,  there  was  no  shadow  of 
affectation  in  it,  but  the  walls  changed  to 
colonnades,  and  everything  that  was  said 
seemed  to  be  an  echo  from  Castilian 
palaces. 

Still,  I  am  utterly  a  thing  of  my  coun- 
try, of  my  race,  of  my  day,  cold,  curious, 
super-civilised;  I  looked  at  him  across  a 
mist,  a  blood  instinct,  of  raw  emotion,  tem- 
pered though  it  was  in  him  by  all  his  in- 
herited mental  craft  of  ancient  centuries. 

He  made  me  feel  my  hair  fairer,  my 
body  thinner,  my  pale  mauve  dress  more 
ethereal.  I  smoothed  the  palms  of  my 
hands  softly  against  the  gilt  arms  of  my 
chair  and  watched  his  face  as  he  talked. 
It  was  not  the  beast  of  the  tiger,  it  was 
the  beast  of  the  bull,  this  thing  that  looked 
189 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

at  me,  who  was  speaking — half  in  French, 
half  in  English — of  Madrid,  of  Buenos 
Ayres,  of  D'Annunzio,  and  bull-fights, 
and  Satanism. 

"I  want  to  feel  everything,  know  every- 
thing, do  everything — yes,  even  the  blood 
and  pain  and  the  abomination,  feel  every 
passion  a  man  can  feel." 

They  sounded  grotesque  from  a  man — 
these  phrases  I  have  so  often  used  myself. 

And  I  was  the  new  emotion  he  wanted 
to  know — I  with  the  fair  hair  and  the  thin 
body  and  the  ethereal  mauve  dress;  flesh 
iced  by  a  caustic  mind.  Oh,  yes,  I  knew 
all  this,  felt  all  this,  as  I  smoothed  the 
palms  of  my  hands  against  the  gilt  and 
watched  his  eyes  grow  bloodshot  and  wide. 

It  amused  me,  this  thing  of  hunger,  the 
Indian  blood  that  would  strike  me  down 
where  I  was,  the  Spanish  gentleman  whose 
very  voice  was  homage. 

How  far  dared  I  go?  There  was  no 
190 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

point  in  making  him  drink  champagne  till 
he  grovelled  with  all  the  absurdity  of  the 
human  beast  undisguised ;  he  was  too  much 
accustomed  to  it  in  excess.  I  would  be 
far  too  tired  by  that  time  to  get  any 
amusement  out  of  it.  Could  I  trust  to  his 
breeding  to  hold  down  the  race  that  made 
the  glint  of  red  in  his  eyes,  that  shook  his 
hands  and  made  them  burn  like  ice?  If  I 
just  let  him  talk  and  kiss  me — yes,  I  would 
let  him  kiss  me,  he  was  too  much  a  brute 
not  to  make  that  a  thing  I  would  like — 
to  the  very  limit  of  final  action.  And 
then  to  stop,  and  see  him  suffer!  Could  I 
mentally  quote  from  him:  "See  every- 
thing, even  the  pain  and  the  abomination." 
I  smiled,  and  held  out  my  hands  to  him, 
and  he  came  and  knelt  in  front  of  my 
chair  and  kissed  first  one  hand  and  then 
the  other,  and  muttered  into  them,  "I  do 
not  know  what  to  say ;  I  am  in  your  hands, 

everything — all  I  am " 

191 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

It  was  a  beautiful  scene.  It  only  want- 
ed violins  playing  cadenzas  in  C  sharp 
minor. 

Cheque  on  Munroe's:  Silenus,  Priapus 
— more,  perhaps,  because  his  hair  was  that 
peculiar  iron  grey  that  is  vibrant  with 
vigour,  his  face  ruddy,  his  body  heavy  as 
though  it  had  always  ridden  on  flower- 
harnessed  asses. 

He  charmed  me  when  he  first  com- 
menced to  talk  of  China.  I  curled  up  at 
the  end  of  the  window  divan,  scrunched 
cushions  behind  me,  and  let  my  imagina- 
tion wanton  around  all  the  fire-words  he 
was  using — the  Bund,  Palanquin,  Jinrik- 
shaw,  the  Bubbling  Wells,  Buddha,  the 
yellow  temples,  Yamen,  Junk,  Typhoons, 
Singapore,  Polo — the  air  dimmed  and 
formed  into  clouds  of  musk  and  spices. 
I  saw  the  jeer  on  yellow  faces,  and  heard 

the  clamour  of  obscure  tongues,  saw  the 
192 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

waving  panels  of  red  and  yellow  with  the 
satanic  Chinese  marks  swaying  and  clink- 
ing from  the  windows  of  narrow  pit-like 
streets; — saw  the  herds  of  strange  blood 
and  form  clattering  by  on  their  straw- 
bound  feet  through  the  filth  of  temple- 
crowned  towns. 

The  smell  of  the  Orient,  streaked  with 
sulphur  burnt  over  by  the  sun,  beaten  by 
monsoons,  seething  with  the  secrets  of  un- 
known birth;  lacquered,  embroidered, 
rouged,  enamelled — I  heard  the  tinkle  of 
its  jade  and  saw  closed  doors  of  teak 
wood. 

When  we  were  alone  we  had  cigarettes 
he  had  brought  himself  from  Cairo,  and  I 
leaned  back  and  watched  the  smoke  curl 
into  rings  that  floated,  I  thought,  down 
the  dim  aisles  of  ancient  trees  leading  to 
the  forbidden  doors  of  closed  temples. 

He  liked  to  talk,  I  liked  to  listen.  We 
193 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

were  both  of  us  slaves  to  the  same  master 
— the  call  of  the  East.  His  voice  seemed 
to  sound  for  me  the  murmur  of  a  familiar 
worship.  His  strong,  brutal,  crafty  face, 
the  full  lips  and  dominating  eyes,  I  under- 
stood and  yielded  to  unresistingly,  because 
he  was  as  much  in  thrall  as  I  to  the  dream, 
the  visions,  the  sense  of  uncomprehended 
things. 

When  he  slipped  down  on  his  knees  be- 
side me,  and  drew  my  face  over  to  his 
lips,  I  did  not  think  of  refusing ;  it  seemed 
part  of  the  ritual  to  a  long-acknowledged 
faith.  Why  should  I  resist?  We  both  of 
us  granted  something  stronger,  an  attrac- 
tion deeper,  a  fascination  more  intense 
than  the  human  sense  could  satisfy.  It 
was  only  the  symbol  of  the  less  for  the 
greater.  He  kissed  me  as  I,  in  thought, 
clambered  up  the  steps  of  some  difficult 
shrine  to  waste  touch  on  the  vapour  of  its 
incense. 

194 


NEW  JERSEY 

Woodlawn. — When  I  wakened  this 
morning  the  pungent  smell  of  burning 
leaves  was  creeping  into  my  room  through 
the  crevices  of  the  curtains,  with  the  sun- 
shine. 

The  air  tingled  when  I  threw  the  shut- 
ters open  as  though  it  had  dissolved  from 
crystals  of  excitement.  The  gardener  was 
raking  together  great  heaps  of  dead  leaves 
and  setting  fire  to  them  on  the  lawn,  the 
fox-terriers  were  tearing  around  in  insane 
concern  and  barking  deliriously.  I  flung 
myself  back  on  the  bed,  and  let  the  air,  the 
sun,  sweep  over  me,  and  flutter  the  maga- 
zines on  the  table  and  ripple  all  the  frills 
on  the  soft  white  curtains.  It  was  sanc- 
tuary. 

195 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

I  raised  myself  on  my  elbow  to  see  my- 
self in  the  glass.  A  serious  face  and  seri- 
ous eyes,  fair  hair  pushed  back  from  an 
absurdly  good  forehead  for  a  woman. 
There  was  nothing  in  the  face  that  would 
tell. 

I  leaned  back  on  the  pillows  raptured 
by  the  purity  of  the  room,  the  outside 
sweetness  of  the  smell  of  burning  leaves— 
the  essence  of  the  forest  consuming  in  the 
chilled  air. 

Through  it  all  I  had  been  conscious,  had 
set  every  breath  since  I  wakened  to  the 
rhythm  of  the  Bach  fugue  that  some  one 
was  playing  below.  Vancouver  and  Dres- 
den and  London  were  all  part  of  this 
Fugue  and  Prelude  in  C  major,  the  ex- 
pectation of  the  audience,  the  step  into 
cloudland,  the  roaring  applause  as  the 
visions  tinkled  back  into  silence.  The 
notes  staccatoed  around  me,  and  held  me 
in  a  clinking  net.  A  net  filled  with  wood 
196 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

perfume  and  the  touch  of  white  smooth 
pillows,  their  undisturbed  lace  frills,  the 
immaculate  smooth-drawn  bed,  the  relief 
of  gold  cool  sunshine  after  the  deep  un- 
broken sleep  of  night. 

These  are  weeks  interspersed  with  music 
and  the  foam-caught  shreds  of  chrysanthe- 
mums, earth  perfume,  filaments  of  mauve 
and  bronze  and  white,  the  very  white  and 
texture  that  spray  back  from  the  touch  of 
the  ship  through  the  waves  at  sea.  Long 
walks  through  the  radiant  woods  showing 
to  the  sun  all  the  colour  they  have  stolen 
from  his  warmth,  the  shrill  sweet  yelp  of 
the  darting  fox-terriers  racing  with  me, 
leaping  at  me,  circling  me,  and  when  I 
sink  down  under  some  tree,  laughing  and 
tired,  smothering  my  hands  in  the  caresses 
from  their  thin  red  tongues. 

I  am  free  from  the  revelation  of  human 
197. 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

things.  I  am  supremely  happy  to  be  alone 
with  myself,  and  the  thrilling  of  the 
autumn  air,  the  dogs,  and  the  music. 

Max  comes  and  plays  too  sometimes, 
and  sings.  The  drawing-room  where  the 
cool  sea-coloured  faded  silks  blend  into 
the  hushing  twilight,  the  transparent  cur- 
tains disclosing  the  vines  and  trees  out- 
side, the  fragile  tall  glasses  holding  the 
cloud-broken  chrysanthemums. 

When  I  am  lying  back  listening  to  him, 
all  the  faint  sheltering  mists  of  dawn  and 
twilight,  of  sea  breath,  creep  around  me, 
and  still  me  in  their  eternal  quiet. 

His  voice  is  so  pure,  so  young,  so  only 
touched  by  fervour,  by  the  very  quality 
of  its  beauty.  Liza  Lehmann's  Persian 
Garden — "Myself  when  young  did 
eagerly  frequent" — the  great  arpeggioed 
chords  ring  gorgeous  and  clarion,  but 
formed  like  tinted  tulips,  not  made  for 
198 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

touch,  or  to  touch  with  perfume.  They 
spread  out  in  waves  of  colour,  they  lift 
up  cup  after  cup  of  dew-washed  amethyst 
and  rose  and  pallor. 


199 


THE  HOUSE 

New  York,  Diamond  Crescent. — I  see 
him  as  he  half  turned  to  me  from  the 
bureau,  winding  his  watch.  His  wide- 
brimmed  sailor  hat  was  tipped  back,  show- 
ing the  heavy  black  curls — not  hyacin- 
thine,  as  I  had  said.  He  was  smiling  up 
at  me  from  under  the  brim  of  his  eyelashes, 
the  straight,  firm  lips  parting  over  the 
even  white  teeth.  I  noticed  that  his  belt 
was  heavy  leather.  The  light  caught  the 
flash  of  the  diamond  on  each  side  of  the 
white  sapphire  on  the  little  finger  of  his 
right  hand. 

The    floor    swayed    under    me    as    I 

dragged  the  silk  and  lace  of  my  frock, 

with  purposed  noise,  over  the  rugs,  and 

flung,  with  a  careful  thought  of  its  re- 

200 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

pressed  beauty,  the  pale  green  brocade 
lining  of  my  long  cloak  open  on  the  top 
of  the  divan.  I  wanted  the  sense  of  its 
beauty  to  help  me.  I  wanted  the  protec- 
tion of  my  white  ostrich  boa,  that  still 
trailed  over  my  shoulder.  I  wanted  every- 
thing in  the  world,  but  the  sense  of  the 
shutting  door  that  paused  in  an  eternity 
of  waiting  instant  till  the  servant  softly 
closed  it.  That  other  night  with  him  was 
billowing  back  to  me  in  waves  of  soft  suf- 
focating oblivion,  of  forgetfulness,  of  en- 
thralment.  I  was  afraid — afraid  of  my- 
self, afraid  of  him,  afraid  of  the  mysteiy, 
the  ecstasy  of  the  moment. 

I  felt,  in  shuddering  pangs  of  under- 
standing, the  simplicity  of  our  meeting. 
The  sham,  the  pretence,  the  babbling  in- 
tellectuality with  the  others  was  out  of 
place,  impossible  now.  I  was  understood, 
computed  at  my  true  level. 

Even  here  Jack  Baird's  extremes  are 
201 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

unique.  But  though  it  is  just  the  kind 
of  thing  that  I  might  have  thought  would 
interest  me,  yet  the  sinister  regularity  of 
his  coming,  the  entire  lack  of  emotion  or 
excitement  in  the  habit  of  these  incidents, 
takes  away  from  it  all  life  and  colour. 
Even  vice,  once  a  habit,  is  conventional 
and  stupid.  He  was  merely  degenerate. 
There  was  no  more  avidity  in  all  these 
excesses  than  in  the  slightest  action  of 
more  healthy  people.  It  interested  me  as 
little  as  would  the  lewdness  of  a  monkey. 
Yet  last  night,  after  Peter  left,  I  felt  I 
had  been  shaken  out  of  my  calm.  I  had 
to  get  some  outside  thing  to  bring  me 
back  to  my  speculative  curiosity.  I  was 
still  shaking  from  his  dominant,  "You 
know  you  care — you  know  you  care!"  I 
sent  him  away;  but  still  to  think  that  he 
should  even  suppose  for  a  moment  I  cared, 
infuriated  me.  Because  I  do.  You  beau- 
tiful calm  monster!  You  stupid  thing  of 
202 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

polo  and  the  stock  exchange!  You  man- 
age me  as  you  would  manage  an  uncertain 
thoroughbred,  and  men  who  understand 
horses  are  the  men  who  understand 
women. 

To  see  a  horse  stand  on  its  hind  legs, 
and  go  sideways  at  a  gate,  one  would 
naturally  infer  it  had  some  objection  to 
going  through.  But  those  who  really 
know  are  aware  that  these  evolutions  are 
merely  an  embellishment  of  entrance. 
And  on  our  side  we  only  ask  from  a  man 
just  about  the  same  amount  of  intelli- 
gence that  he  requires  to  play  polo  well 
— and  physique,  you  Mercury  of  the  Vati- 
can come  to  life ! 

"I  could  break  your  little  spine  across 
my  knee";  and  he  throws  me  from  hand  to 
hand,  and  never  leaves  a  bruise,  though 
my  skin  turns  black  if  the  maid  rasps  my 
shoulder  in  fastening  my  frock. 

I  sent  in  my  conditions  to  Jack,  though, 
203 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

first,  and  they  were  clamorously  accepted 
—"Only  come"! 

It  was  now  two  in  the  morning,  and 
Jack  had  been  drinking  alone  since  eleven 
the  night  before. 

Jack  stood,  big,  ponderous,  and  fair 
beside  the  table,  looking  like  a  well-bred 
acrobat  in  the  tightly-stretched  pink  silk. 

I  felt  like  the  champagne;  I  felt  like  the 
cigarettes. 

I  took  the  glass,  shaped  like  a  lily  with 
its  bubbling  excitement,  from  Jack,  and 
curled  up  at  the  end  of  the  divan  and 
scowled  at  him.  Fair  men  are  always  so 
affectionate.  I  detest  affection. 

"Do  you  know  of  anything  interest- 
ing?" I  asked.  "I  have  only  heard  of  you 
as  being  quite  the  most  dissipated  man 
who  comes  to  the  house.  Have  you  any- 
thing worth  while  about  you  at  all?" 

He  smiled.  "Do  they  say  that  of  me? 
204 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Perhaps  I  can  prove  to  you  I  am  not 
so  bad " 

I  drew  away  the  fold  of  my  train  from 
his  hands.  "No,  talk,"  I  interrupted;  "I 
want  to  be  amused.  If  you  can  tell  me 
anything  exciting  I  shall  stay;  if  not,  I 
go  as  soon  as  I  finish  my  cigarette." 

He  looked  at  me  with  lifted  eyebrows. 
"You  want  to  be  amused,  to  know  some- 
thing new,  something  different?  I  too 
have  heard  about  you,  you  know." 

I  shook  the  ashes  off  my  cigarette 
placidly.  "No  doubt,  I  have  an  invincible 
curiosity  about  everything." 

He  laughed  and  bit  his  lips.  It's  re- 
markable how  much  you  can  say  and  yet 
keep  that  stone  wall  around  yourself.  He 
did  not  dare  to  stir. 

He  talked  on  and  on.    I  just  felt  myself 

vampiring  the  vitality  out  of  him — fine 

brute  that  he  is — as  I  watched  the  black 

lines  deepen  under  his  eyes  and  his  face 

205 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

flame  suddenly  till  the  veins  swelled  or 
turned  white.  The  attendant  came  and 
went  silently,  with  freshly  cooled  wine, 
and  the  dawn  was  showing  like  a  chink 
of  green  ice  in  a  crevice  of  raised  lace  at 
the  window,  when  I  heard  one  sentence 
shiver  through  the  veil  of  smoke — "But 
that  was  the  year  I  fought  in  the  Rebellion 
in  Canada." 

My  cigarette  dropped  from  my  fingers 
to  the  floor.  "You  served — in  Canada! 
But  you  belong — here." 

"Well,"  he  said  indolently,  "I  imagine 
you  do  the  same.  I  think  you  told  me, 
after  I  had,  with  a  good  deal  of  labour, 
elicited  some  information  about  your 
birthplace,  that  you  were  born  in  New 
York." 

"Exactly,  Vita  Nuova,  Inferno,  and  all 

the  rest  of  it.    Ever  read  Dante,  Jackie? 

Longfellow's    translation's    rotten."      I 

glanced  at  him,  feeling  like  a  wolf  holding 

206 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

a  nosegay  over  its  fangs.  If  I  had  been 
drinking  champagne,  and  it  ever  occurred 
to  me  that  I  would  like  to  murder  any- 
one, I  don't  think  I  would  let  any  ulterior 
considerations  stand  in  the  way  of  permit- 
ting myself  the  satisfaction  I  desired. 
"But  go  on,"  I  added,  pulling  out  another 
cigarette,  "tell  me  how  you  deserted  these 
United  States  for — the  Nation  to  the 
North." 

"Are  you  a  Canadian?"  Jack  was 
taking  risks.  It  doesn't  do  to  make  people 
themselves. 

"I  told  you  that  I  am  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  born  in  New  York,  made 
of  the  world  here — more  or  less."  It  is  a 
thing  out  of  thought  that  I  should  sully 
my  country  by  either  naming  it  or  claim- 
ing it  in  this  place.  It  also  pleases  me — 
under  the  circumstances — to  call  myself  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States. 

"Well,  if  you  are  not  a  Canadian,  the 
207 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

fact  seems  to  remarkably  alter  you."  He 
flung  his  head  back  on  his  folded  arms. 
"You  look  for  the  first  time  as  though 
you  could  feel,  as  though  you  could  love 
• — or  hate."  This  time  it  was  Jack  who 
was  scowling  at  me. 

"Never  mind,  Jack,"  I  laughed.  "Wait, 
I  want  some  more  wine.  No,  don't  get 
up;  I  want  to  get  it  myself.  I  am  rest- 
less. I  like  doing  it.  I  will  give  you  some 
for  yourself."  I  poured  it  out.  It  seemed 
to  me  it  was  some  oblation  or  potion. 

The  rivers,  the  mountains  I  The  wonder 
of  Canada  was  flooding  before  me,  the  air 
tinkled  with  the  shiver  of  pine  trees.  I 
bent  over  him  with  the  glass:  "Tell  me 
all;  tell  me  everything,  everything  you 
heard,  felt,  saw." 

"Oh,  I  just  got  in  at  the  end.    I  was 

educated  at  M'Gill,  you  know;  and  when 

I  went  over  that  year  all  the  fellows  were 

in  a  blaze,  and  so  I  tried  and — got  in." 

208 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

He  paused.  "I  didn't  chance  to  be  where 
there  happened  much  to  tell" — he  was 
looking  at  me  steadily,  his  big  chest  rising 
and  falling — "only,  when  he  was  taken 
prisoner,  our  regiment  was  the  guard  for 
Louis  Riel." 

"Yes,"  I  breathed.  This  was  my  coun- 
try. Louis  Riel:  the  traitor  Riel.  Sud- 
denly my  soul,  who  sneers  at  one  side  of 
the  room  and  only  watches  me  in  all  I 
do,  leaped  into  myself.  I  trembled  with 
the  shock.  "Go  on,"  I  stammered.  "You 
saw  him — was  he  young,  handsome,  old, 
ugly?"  I  stretched  myself  out  full  length 
at  the  foot  of  the  divan,  and  propped  up 
my  head  in  my  hands. 

Jack's  voice  had  changed.  "No,  he  was 
an  ugly  cur,  dark  and  little — about  fifty." 

"He  was  ugly  and  little  and  old" — I 
licked  up  the  words.  "How  did  he  act? 
Was  he — brave?" 

"Brave?  No;  he  carried  his  sixty-four 
209 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

pound  shot  in  his  hands  and  cried."  His 
eyes  had  become  luminous  looking  into  the 
distance.  "The  boys  would  pretend  to 
take  shots  at  him,  and  he  would  try  to- 


run." 


I  crept  a  little  nearer—  "They  only  pre- 
tended." 

"Oh,  yes,  he  was  such  a  damned  coward, 
one  couldn't  resist  baiting  him.  And  then 
they  hate — you  Canadians." 

I  let  the  word  go.    "And  the  end?" 

"Yes,  the  end.  I  was  there  then."  Then 
after  a  minute,  "I  have  told  you  all.  A 
man  doesn't  see  these  things  twice  in  a 
life.  They  are  not  things  one  likes  to 
go  through  a  second  time." 

But  I  crept  nearer,  tense,  all  muscle, 
every  nerve  silenced,  only  devouring  the 
meaning  out  of  his  eyes,  eating  the  words 
out  of  his  mouth.  "No,  you  have  not  told 
me  all." 

He  pushed  back  the  hair  from  his  fore- 
210 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

head.  "The  word  came  from  Ottawa  that 
night" — I  felt  as  though  I  were  racking 
the  sentences  out  of  him — "that  her 
Majesty's  Canadian  Government  ordered 
that — Louis  Riel  was  to  be  hanged  by  the 
neck,  until  dead,  at  eight  the  next  morn- 
ing." 

"Yes." 

"But  I  have  brought  you  down  to  the 
very  moment."  His  eyes  looked  at  me 
almost  with  fear. 

"I  would  have  pulled  the  rope  myself," 
I  said  steadily;  "and  I  would  have  throt- 
tled the  life  out  of  him,  gloried  in  his 
agony.  I  who  would  shudder  with  grief 
at  the  pain  of  a  fly." 

"And  then  the  next  morning — there  is 
nothing  more — he  was — afraid — there  is 
nothing  more."  I  laid  my  hand  on  Jack's 
knee.  "Then — yes — but  to  see  a  man 
die.  I  closed  my  eyes — but  still  I  thought 
it  was  my  duty  to — look — I  saw — it."  He 
211 


.THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

could  say  no  more.  I  could  ask  no  more. 
...  Of  course,  I  paid  Jack  the  price  he 
asked  for  his  story;  but  I  don't  wonder 
that  even  here  his  reputation  is  distinctive. 

Monday. — How  ridiculous  the  accepted 
view  of  life  is — how  pitiful,  how  absurd! 
I  was  looking  over  a  magazine  to-day  that 
is  supposed  to  be  very  superior,  and  found 
some  chapters  of  a  very  female  story. 

She  says,  "When  you  kneeled  at  me, 
and  called  me  all  the  goddess  names" — 
and  only  a  couple  of  nights  ago  he  kneeled 
to  me — where — and  called  me  all  the 
names  love  knows.  Love  knows  no  other 
names. 

After  this  person  in  the  story  is  mar- 
ried, her  husband  goes  to  town  for  a  few 
hours,  and  she  sends  notes  to  him  every 
little  while,  saying,  "How  he  will  teach 
her  how  to  love,  that  every  month  will  be 
their  bridal  month" — she  was  evidently 
212 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

rather  interested;  that  she  "wants  to  be 
everything  he  wants" — he  is  evidently 
rather  experienced. 

And  this  kind  of  thing  is  considered  by 
the  average  feminine  public  sacredly  mat- 
rimonial; or  if  a  shuddering  aside  is  per- 
mitted, the  awful  red  glare  from  some 
passion  for  which  the  accommodating 
woman  is  supposed  to  sacrifice  the  world. 
And  all  the  same  words  and  adorations 
and  honours  are  given  in  fast  houses  every 
night  to  women  men  have  only  known  an 
hour.  Other  women  do  not  understand. 

We  have  loved  again  and  again,  fresh 
love,  new  kisses,  as  hard,  as  real,  as  any 
that  part  the  lips  of  a  bride ;  but  we  know 
that  it  is  a  Renaissance  of  each  new  night, 
that  these  things  die  with  the  dawn  to  be 
reborn  in  any  flame  of  responsive  eyes. 

We  lose  the  faith  of  the  quality  of  love. 
If  women  lead  the  lives  they  are  supposed 
to  lead,  we  do  only  and  honestly  love  but 
213 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

one  man,  because  but  one  man  possesses 
us;  but  men,  in  the  ratio  of  their  brains 
and  habit,  love  many  women. 

And  poetry  has  given  us  our  part — to 
weep.  But  why  is  not  one  woman  so 
superb  that  she  can  be  sufficient  for  ever 
to  a  man? 

However,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  would 
get  awfully  tired  of  only  one  man  my- 
self. 

November. — The  world  is  made  of  grey 
slime.  I  am  sick  of  being  clay  for  the 
gods. 

It  rains  all  day,  and  the  wind  beats  up 
the  mud  into  diseased  pools. 

The  very  sight  of  a  glass  of  champagne 
nauseates  me;  when  any  one  touches  me 
I  look  down  to  see  if  my  flesh  has  risen 
into  bubbles  of  poison. 

I  am  tired — God,  but  I  am  tired !  The 
self  I  drag  around  is  rebelling,  it  is  diffi- 
214 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

cult  to  make  it  obey  me  now.  I  whine 
down  each  time  I  wake,  in  anticipation  of 
what  it  will  have  to  bear  in  the  next  space 
of  being  awake.  I  will  not  permit  any 
kisses  on  my  lips.  I  kept  that  apart. 
Surely  I  can  assume  some  right  over  my- 
self against  that  mind  monster  that  grinds 
me  down  to  get  the  money  for — what?  I 
have  almost  forgotten  for  what — Europe, 
revenge — revenge,  why  should  I  revenge? 
—the  East.  What  folly  it  is,  what  consum- 
mate folly  it  all  is!  I  am  now  almost  too 
weak  to  break  loose,  to  get  free  from  my- 
self. I  am  afraid,  I  have  stretched  my 
will  like  a  piece  of  elastic.  I  have  stretched 
it  in  front  of  my  very  eyes.  If  it  should 
break  and  snap  back? 


215 


NEW  JERSEY 

Woodlawn. — In  the  long  slumberous 
days  in  bed  after  the  operation,  I  loved 
the  stillness,  the  isolation,  the  utter  rest, 
the  darkened  room,  the  low  distinct  voices 
of  the  nurses  saying  only  necessary  things. 
It  seemed  natural  to  be  fed,  natural  to 
be  lifted,  to  be  bathed,  to  sleep  from  eight 
to  eight.  I  would  open  my  eyes  to  see 
the  nurses  show  me  fresh  flowers  each  day, 
and  then  close  them  to  that  exquisite  un- 
thinking torpor,  open  them  again  to  see 
one  of  them  sitting  in  just  a  glint  of  light 
from  one  side  of  the  curtain  while  she 
endlessly  embroidered  rosebuds  on  a  linen 
cloth.  To  embroider  rosebuds;  what  an 
existence  of  euthanasia ! 

Then  the  doctor  would  come  and  hurt 
216 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

me,  and  I  would  struggle  for  a  while  and 
then  faint.  I  bore  pain  very  badly,  they 
said,  for  a  woman  with  such  a  magnificent 
physique  and  constitution.  They  seemed 
to  consider  that  the  sole  advantage  to  a 
woman  of  a  fine  physique  was  her  ability 
to  bear  pain;  they  seemed  to  think  it  was 
natural  and  right  for  a  woman  to  bear 
pain ;  whereas  I  fainted  because  of  my  im- 
potent rage  at  the  gods  that  made  pain 
possible.  For  I  think  physical  pain  a  per- 
sonal insult  from  the  gods  not  to  be  borne, 
very  rarely  to  be  borne — to  curse  us  with 
life,  and  then  to  make  us  suffer.  Every 
breath  of  agony  was  another  blow  straight 
from  the  invisible  torturer  of  creation ;  and 
I  was  powerless  to  hit  back. 

This  illness  seems  a  backwater  of  the 

fictional  virtues.     Two  doctors  and  two 

nurses  all  in  the  secret,  all  stolidly  and 

unanimously  proclaiming  to  the  small  self- 

217 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

important  suburban  world  that  I  had 
happened  to  have  a  slight  accident  which 
they  found  later  had  brought  on  unfore- 
seen complications. 

It  may,  of  course,  be  professional 
secrecy,  and  it's  certainly  what  I  demand ; 
but  I  am  tempted  to  think  it  is  rather  on 
account  of  the  fact  that  they  would  lose 
their  big  fees  and  their  big  wages  if  they 
told.  So  I  am  safe — money  can  always 
buy  respectability;  it  buys  for  me  now 
chastity  and  maidenhood. 

Of  course,  my  money  is  all  going 
through  this  illness  like  sand  through  a 
sieve;  I  shall  start  again  pauperised  as 
before,  but  this  time  with  a  hideous  handi- 
cap. I  feel  so  broken  and  unmanageable. 
My  nerve  is  there.  I  am  mentally  ready 
for  anything  still,  but  the  thing  I  fight 
with  is  helpless  to  answer  me.  My  body 
seems  to  myself  like  a  cruelly  hurt  dog 
that  tries  to  answer  to  a  call  but  only 
218 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

quivers  through  its  limbs  and  raises  the 
flicker  of  an  eyelash  in  anguished  impo- 
tence. My  body  is  useless  to  me  now  for 
a  while.  I  shall  have  to  scheme  and  think. 
It  all  rests  on  my  mind — my  miserable 
mind. 

If  I  cannot  revenge  myself  on  the  gods 
I  can  revenge  myself  on  society.  They 
come  and  see  me,  these  queer  small  people 
of  another  world,  the  petrified  inflated 
world  of  puddle  positions,  the  world  of 
suburban  golf  clubs  and  smug  At  Homes 
and  club  women. 

They  are  very  kind.  They  bring  me 
exquisite  flowers,  they  send  me  baskets  of 
out-of-season  fruit,  their  carriages  are  al- 
ways at  the  disposal  of  myself  and  my 
nurse. 

I  receive  them,  critical  and  pallid,  in 
voluminous  pink,  my  comprehending  fox- 
terrier  snuggled  in  some  cushions  beside 
219  i 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

me,  my  nurse  sitting  on  one  side  embroid- 
ering pink  rosebuds  on  linen.  I  want  her 
there  to  turn  them  out,  with  the  divine 
prerogative  of  the  sick-room,  when  I  get 
bored.  Why  can't  one  always  keep  a 
trained  nurse  to  dispose  of  people  when 
one  is  bored? 

I  have  a  barricade  beside  me  of  the  pink 
azaleas.  I  don't  want  any  of  them  to  draw 
their  chairs  too  close,  to  take  my  hands, 
or,  unthinkable  horror,  to  attempt  to  kiss 
me.  Sentiment  always  nauseates  me ;  and 
these  women,  weighing  one  hundred  and 
nineteen  or  two  hundred  and  nineteen 
pounds,  are  very  unkissable.  They  are 
good,  of  course,  but  you  can't  kiss  virtue ; 
that's  why  it  is  virtue — and  unkissed. 

How  bored  I  do  get!     They  cluster 

around  the  fact  of  my  operation  like  flies. 

Being  unmarried  allows  me  to  be  blandly 

non-committal;  and,  of  course,  married 

220 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

women — women  with  a  husband — are  al- 
ways grotesquely  mysterious. 

What  do  they  know  about  men?  But 
they  come  and  buzz  around  me,  and  I  see 
nothing  but  the  fact  that  they  are  married 
women,  and  I  am  not,  and  that  they  gen- 
erally have  no  figure,  and  I  have  .  .  . 
and  if  they  only  knew  that  my  unseen, 
unborn,  unformed  child  had  been  carried 
through  the  mists  of  ether  in  this  very 
room! 

I  finger  the  ears  of  the  fox-terrier  while 
Mrs.  Denison  talks  of  her  baby.  I  re- 
member the  story  of  Socrates  and  Dioti- 
ma — and  the  hedge.  I  feel  a  hysterical 
longing  to  laugh,  and  turn  my  face  to  the 
nurse.  She  understands;  and  in  a  few 
minutes  she  and  I  are  alone,  and  I  am 
trembling  into  spasms  of  nervousness. 

I  could  imagine  the  catastrophic  mo- 
ment if  by  any  impossible  chance  they  dis- 
22X 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

covered  the  truth.     I — who  have  been  one 
of  the  professional  outcasts  of  the  race. 

But  yet  the  absurdity  of  calling  fast 
women  all  the  contemptuous  names  that 
language  affords!  I  remember  the  life  as 
I  have  seen  it :  the  men  who  come  cringing 
with  lust;  the  women  who,  with  cool  com- 
mon sense,  make  a  universal  demand  serve 
as  a  financial  asset. 

And  at  least  in  the  one  vital  decision 
that  every  man  and  woman  has  to  make, 
fast  women  are  clean  of  the  sin  that  makes 
a  mockery  of  most  of  the  virtuous;  the 
penurious  marriages,  the  squalid  mar- 
riages, with  their  ill-fed,  diseased,  ill-made 
children,  who  pave  the  cities  with  pain. 

They  know  the  awful  possibilities  of 
life,  and  life  is  no  boon  to  thrust  on  part 
of  your  flesh  unless  you  can  give  it  all 
that  the  world  holds  of  material  and  men- 
tal good. 

222 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

For  the  most  stupendous  crime  of  hu- 
manity is  to  bring  a  human  being  into  the 
world  when  there  is  no  prospect  of  its 
having  the  easiest  way  the  penalty  of  life 
allows  us.  Without  the  way  made  as 
nearly  broad  and  smooth  as  possible  for 
the.  unborn  helpless  creature's  feet,  it  is 
the  cruelty  of  brainless  brutes  to  launch 
this  thing,  who  should  be  above  all  things 
loved,  into  the  prison  of  human  life. 

I  detest  doctors  who  look  on  suffering 
with  their  air  of  urbane,  intelligent  in- 
terest. 

"Well,  how  can  you  stand  it?  can't  you 
see  I'm  suffering?"  I  would  snarl  at  my 
doctor. 

"I  am  helpless — helpless,"  he  would 
say;  and  then  I  would  tell  the  nurse  to 
leave  the  room,  and  leave  me  alone,  and 
let  me  suffer  without  any  eyes  to  see  me. 
You  can  let  yourself  go  then,  rip  your 
223 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

whole  soul  in  pieces,  and  lie  broken  for 
the  gods  to  rejoice  over,  but  only  when 
there  is  no  one  human  to  see. 

Pain  degrades,  brutalises;  there  is  no 
doubt  about  it.  I  have  lost  some  keen 
edge  to  my  interest  in  this  loathsome  ill- 
ness, this  occasional  stabbing  suffering. 
You  are  simply  drained  of  mind  and  only 
left  your  nerves  to  tell  you  how  much  the 
body  can  endure  without  losing  conscious- 
ness. Only  a  fool  would  associate  any- 
thing noble,  elevating,  with  that  kind  of 
bestial  drawing  of  breath.  What  insuf- 
ferable drivel  is  the  talk  about  pain  borne 
with  noble  fortitude !  a  dog  or  a  horse  will 
bear  pain  without  squealing  when  they 
want  to;  and  anyway,  what  is  the  use  of 
squealing?  The  heavens  are  very  far 
away,  and  nothing  that  hears  can  help. 
A  dose  of  morphia  or  a  cone  of  ether  is 
about  the  only  celestial  element  in  an  ill- 
224 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ness.  I  hate  sick  people;  they  are  less 
than  human.  Oh,  yes,  I  know  I  am  sick 
myself,  and  am  waited  on  faithfully  day 
and  night;  but  they  are  paid  for  it,  well 
paid  for  it,  in  good  glittering  gold. 

Sometimes  as  I  lie  here  at  the  wide  win- 
dow overlooking  the  hills  I  feel  that  the 
only  things  important  are  the  perfume  of 
new  budding  trees,  the  opening  smell  of 
the  earth,  the  winds,  the  sea,  the  changing 
sky,  these  and  Art,  the  mystery,  the  in- 
scrutable face  of  Art  through  its  veil  of 
our  senses.  These  are  the  things  that  make 
life.  Everything  we  feel  is  only  a  step 
nearer,  a  light  to  see  that  face,  to  interpret 
closer  that  ecstasy  of  Nature. 

People  have  been  sending  me  such  a  lot 
of  new  books  while  I  have  been  ill,  that 
this  afternoon  I  asked  the  nurse  to  pile 
them  up  beside  me  so  that  I  could  glance 
into  them.  I  couldn't  be  bothered  read- 
225 


ing  that  kind  of  thing,  still  I  could  look 
through  them  enough  to  be  able  to  babble 
politely  over  their  titles. 

But  after  the  third  they  have  left  me 
with  my  hands  like  ice  and  my  teeth  chat- 
tering with  rage.  The  false  view,  the 
distorted  sentiment,  the  lack  of  experience, 
the  imitation  passion,  the  imitation  im- 
morality: lies  that  are  only  insults  to  hu- 
manity. 

These  stories  are  not  about  human  be- 
ings, they  are  about  brutes — the  annals 
of  the  kennels.  Do  we  want  to  read  of 
how  the  fox-terrier  bitch  had  puppies  with 
curly  hair?  We  might  as  well  read  that 
as  books  modelled  on  The  Scarlet  Letter 
and  Adam  Bede.  The  verbal  hallucina- 
tions of  people  of  more  or  less  quite 
blameless  lives.  Situations  that  are  merely 
trash  to  the  sensualist  who  has  seen  life 
naked.  Books  can  tell  of  deliberate  vice 
or  the  rankest  sensuality,  every  variation 
226 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

of  sex  and  instinct.  We  can  laugh  at  that, 
or  our  nerves  can  shiver  over  it,  but  we  do 
not  want  to  hear  how  the  baboon  dragged 
the  ape  down  the  cocoanut  tree;  how,  as 
they  phrase  it,  "in  a  moment  of  weakness, 
Nature  triumphed." 

I  hold  no  brief  for  men,  but  I  object 
to  seeing  books  stained  with  statements 

that  do  not  exist  in  real  life. 

***** 

The  nurse  came  in  and  found  me  gib- 
bering over  the  paper  and  pencil  and  the 
books,  and  took  them  all  away  from  me, 
and  scolded  me,  and  knew  it  had  brought 
back  the  pain  in  my  side  again,  and 
opened  the  window  to  let  the  wind  from 
the  pine  hills  blow  over  me,  and  bathed 
my  flaming  face  in  scented  water,  and 
held  steadying  nerve  stuff  in  a  glass 
against  my  clinking  teeth.  How  beauti- 
fully she  soothed  me! — these  wonderful 
nurses! — told  me  "yes,"  it  was  lies — no 
227 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

one  was  unhappy — it  was  all  lies;  and  all 
the  time  she  was  lifting  away  the  crushed 
cushions,  and  putting  cool,  smooth  pil- 
lows in  their  place,  and  bringing  me  flow- 
ers from  the  next  room.  She  does  not 
allow  many  flowers  to  stay  here  to  take 
up  the  air,  but  now  she  brought  me  the 
bowl  of  hyacinths,  and  the  great  jar  of 
heavy  scented  white  lilies  that  Max  sends 
me.  She  knows  I  love  them,  that  they 
rest  me. 

She  looked  so  pure,  so  calm,  with  the 
delicate  white  cap  on  her  dark  hair,  her 
immaculate  white  pique  dress,  the  fine 
snowy  fichu  and  apron  and  cuffs.  She 
is  virgin,  absolutely  virgin.  The  sense  of 
her  utter  chastity  is  as  refreshing  to  a 
woman  of  my  temperament  and  life  as  the 
rectitude  of  white  marble  or  the  austere 
frescos  of  mediaeval  saints. 


228 


NEW  YORK 

"The  Woman's  Salon" May. — I  do  not 
know  whether  I  shall  be  able  to  carry  it 
through,  but  it  doesn't  at  least  ask  any 
personal  spending  of  myself,  only  physical 
strength  for  the  daily  strain  and  some 
simulated  appearance  of  intelligence. 

I  shall  have  to  take  my  mind  out  of  its 
ghoul  precincts,  and  bring  it  into  a  crowd- 
ed room  to  play  some  parlour  tricks.  It 
is  like  a  terrier  torn  away  from  burrow- 
ing for  its  beloved  rat,  and  told  to  sit  on 
a  chair  with  a  lump  of  sugar  on  its  nose. 
But  I  want  my  lump  of  sugar.  I  want 
Europe,  and  it  means  Europe.  A  free 
trip,  and  a  sufficiently  unexpected  manner 
of  descent. 

To  be  the  Editor  of  the  London  edition 
229 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

of  The  Woman's  Salon!  The  smug  suc- 
cess of  the  thing  in  relation  to  my  insta- 
bility will  have  the  carrying  weight  of  a 
whole  trunkful  of  Paris  frocks.  I— 
Editor!  I  see  the  smile  around  Oscar's 
mouth,  the  patronising  flicker  of  his  eye- 
brows at  the  idea.  I  who  have  the  general 
steadiness  and  business  ability  of  a  flying 
machine ! 

The  whole  thing  is  an  absurd  fluke ;  but 
the  managing  editor  of  the  Salon  Com- 
pany is  Irish,  and  with  my  Irish  blood  I 
am  able  to  wheedle  and  transfix  him  with 
the  idea  that  my  occasionally  intense  man- 
ner means  reserves  of  intellect  ready  to 
burst  on  the  magazine  world. 

I  don't  blame  him  in  the  least.  Most 
people  think  I  am  clever;  but  it's  only 
myself  that  understands  that  it  is  not  the 
things  I  know  but  the  things  I  care 
for  that  make  what  I  do  significant. 
230 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

When  I  was  talking  to  Kelly  about  the 
advisability  of  retaining  a  department  on 
tatting,  my  whole  soul,  the  cold  sweat  of 
unnamed  agony,  was  clawing  at  his  eyes 
and  mouth  to  blind  him,  to  make  him 
think  I  was  sincere.  Department  on  Tat- 
ting !  and  any  woman  who  would  tat  could 
be  very  sensibly  hung  up  in  her  own 
threads.  The  Culinary  Photographs — 
and  the  care  that  gives  seasonable  and  not 
too  expensive  dainties,  "but  with  a  little 
touch  of  the  unusual."  A  little  touch  of 
the  unusual!  Yes,  according  to  my  pri- 
vate views  of  the  readers  of  the  magazine, 
I  would  suggest  in  everything  a  dash  of 
prussic  acid. 

But  I  smiled  and  comprehended,  and 
my  voice  coloured  as  my  eyes  dilated,  and 
I  cooed  and  comprehended  till  my  finger- 
nails had  dug  through  the  thickness  of  kid 
into  the  palm  of  my  hand.  Kelly  in- 
formed me  sweetly  that  he  approved  of 
231 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

temperament;  "it  gave  motives  of  enthu- 
siasm that  would  be  beneficial  to  the  Com- 
pany's Work." 

"We  are  like  one  great  family,"  he 
would  observe,  looking  around  compla- 
cently over  the  dun  blank  acre-long  loft 
with  its  stooping-shouldered,  yellow-faced 
mass  of  mediocrities;  "each  in  their  way, 
however  small,  give  their  best  to  the 
Paper." 

I  murmured  something  about  feeling 
the  incomparable  felicity  of  such  a  con- 
summation, and  added  slowly,  with  my 
best  Irish  smile,  "that  I  too  would  give  my 
best."  I  glanced  out  of  the  dusty  window 
at  the  blank  grey  wall  beyond,  and  for 
some  reason  unfelt  by  myself  my  eyes 
slowly  filled  with  tears.  Unbusinesslike 
as  I  am,  my  physical  weakness  disgusted 
me;  but  the  Celt  laps  up  emotion  with 
the  eagerness  of  all  the  rest  of  the  cat 
tribe,  and  Kelly  only  assured  me  raptur- 
232 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ously  that  all  his  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence were  at  my  disposal — that  he  was  so 
glad  for  the  Company — what  an  inspira- 
tion to  the  London  office! 

I  breathe  morals,  I  radiate  an  air  of  in- 
spired propriety,  and  so  I  go  into  New 
York  to  the  Salon  building  each  day  to 
learn  all  the  individual  methods  of  the 
Salon  Company. 

The  physical  weariness  of  it  beats  me 
from  head  to  foot — the  race  to  catch  the 
8.10  train  in  the  morning,  the  noisy  trolley 
spurting  through  the  dirty  slum  streets, 
the  street  itself  full  of  packing-cases  and 
bristling  with  straw  under  a  sun  that 
strikes  you  with  a  blow  at  half-past  nine 
in  the  morning.  And  the  puling  insig- 
nificances that  through  the  day  I  must 
treat  as  being  of  such  monster  importance. 
I  grow  insanely  tired  when  they  worry 
me  over  the  English  spelling  of  a  word. 
I  don't  care  how  anything  is  spelled. 
233 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

What  does  spelling  matter  anyway,  as 
long  as  one  understands?  Spelling  is 
dogs'  work. 

Then  every  now  and  then  that  stab 
through  my  flesh  warns  me  of  how  I  was 
beaten  in  the  last  set  of  the  game — not 
quite  beaten.  I  learned  a  few  tricks  from 
you,  Fate;  I  understand  you  better  now. 

It  is  a  little  world,  this  business,  like  all 
other  worlds — a  little,  mean,  shuffling, 
jealous  world.  The  cataclysmic  univer- 
sal tragedy  if  some  bit  of  type  or  the  frac- 
tion of  a  measurement  goes  wrong,  the 
queer  mixture  of  use  and  sleek  conven- 
tional lies  that  make  the  people  and  the 
paper.  Kelly  cries  to  me  all  the  time, 
when  talking  of  the  London  edition, 
"Nothing  startling;  the  world  doesn't 
want  to  be  startled."  Quite  so.  Did  you 
ever  see  a  donkey  that  had  an  instantane- 
ous affection  for  a  motor? 
284 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Yes,  it's  all  very  well  to  pander  to  a 
mule  public  if  you  are  paid  ten  thousand 
dollars  a  year  for  the  cultivation  of 
thistles ;  but  for  twenty-five  dollars  a  week 
to  correct  proofs  on  the  subject  of  the 
"Loves  of  Great  Men,"  written  in  the 
Felicia  Hemans  style,  is  galling  to  any- 
one who  judges  by  practical  experience, 
with  present-day  genius,  how  those  Great 
Men  probably  did  in  reality  conduct  their 
affairs  of  sentiment. 

I  have  come  to  the  limit  of  my  strength. 
I  could  not  endure  very  much  longer  the 
immense  dusty  rooms,  the  click  of  the 
typewriters,  the  herding  together  for 
hours  with  people,  breathing,  nerve-suck- 
ing human  beings  who  talk  mental  choc- 
taw;  then  the  brief  glimpses  of  the  water, 
the  liquid  vitality  that  foams  around  the 
ferry  and  bursts  against  it  in  white  broken 
stars  on  the  two  daily  trips,  the  one  thing 
235 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

that  helps  to  keep  me  alive,  that  and  a 
huge  flower-weighted,  perfume-drenched 
mass  of  white  honeysuckle  that  is  the  first 
thing  I  see  in  the  evening  when  I  leave 
the  train  at  Woodlawn. 

I  could  not  endure  any  longer  those 
abominable  luncheons  in  the  crowded  res- 
taurant, the  watching  the  clock,  the  elec- 
tric fans,  the  smell  of  cooking  food,  the 
walk  back  under  the  iron  sun  to  the  build- 
ing through  the  straw-covered,  packing- 
case-piled  street. 

But  it  is  over:  I  sail  next  Saturday. 
They  have  given  me  my  one  hundred- 
dollar  steamer  ticket;  and  I,  even  I,  shall 
descend  on  the  people  I  know,  and,  what 
is  more  important,  the  people  who  know 
me.  I  shall  descend  on  them  as  an  editor. 
I  who  had  visions  of  renting  a  house  on 
Hill  Street,  of  appearing  in  a  mist  of 
green  spangles  and  opals. 

I  shall  live  up  to  the  part,  however,  and 
236 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

wear  Liberty  serges  and  long  chains  of 
uncut  stones.  The  one  trail  of  the  ser- 
pent, though,  will  be  my  feet.  Sensible 
or  unsensible,  good  or  bad  form,  I  can't 
renounce  my  stockings  with  the  fronts  of 
real  lace,  or  the  suede  slippers  with  wicked 
heels.  You  can  always  judge  a  woman's 
morals  by  her  feet,  and  I  cannot  induce 
myself  to  hide  my  polyandrous  tendencies 
by  assuming  broader  soles  to  my  shoes. 


237 


LONDON 

"Tlie  Woman's  Salon"  November. — A 
blind  street,  lined  with  tenements,  begins 
opposite  my  window.  Underneath,  in  this 
street,  huge  drays  and  carts  crunch  along 
all  day.  A  saloon  is  on  the  corner  of  the 
blind  street.  Next  door  is  a  leather  ware- 
house, where  rolls  of  rank  smelling  skins 
are  being  hauled  in  and  out  from  morning 
till  night. 

My  office  is  whitewashed,  powdered  to 
grey  with  dust.  The  whole  front  is  taken 
up  by  the  immense  window  with  a  glassy 
crumpled  yellow  blind.  There  is  a  large 
roll-top  desk  for  me  and  green  shaded 
electric  bulbs.  I  should  say  the  desk  was 
man's  size;  certainly  the  whole  place  was 
not  built  for  a  woman. 
238 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  stairs  are  long,  wooden,  dusty,  un- 
even; it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  a  cab 
here  when  you  stumble  your  way  out  at 
five  o'clock  in  the  evening.  From  ten  in 
the  morning  till  five  in  the  evening,  two 
sulphur  yellow  dips  into  the  clamour  of 
the  underground  railway,  two  disgusted 
dirty  walks  down  warehoused,  barricaded 
streets,  trams,  trucks,  drays,  an  ooze  of 
work-girls  and  labourers,  solemn  ragged 
children,  and  a  green,  slime-covered, 
stone-slabbed  church-yard. 

I  get  my  lips  between  my  teeth,  and 
face  it  each  morning.  I  am  white  with 
dismay  at  it  when  I  reach  my  desk  and 
find  a  pile  of  proofs  waiting  for  me,  a 
bundle  of  copy  from  the  advertising  man- 
ager to  be  given  with  directions  to  the 
head  compositor. 

The  compositor  comes  down  in  answer 
to  my  telephone — an  abhorrent  creature, 
289 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

so  weirdly  marked  with  small-pox  that  you 
wonder  why  he  wants  to  obtrude  that 
painfully  mutilated  body  on  the  world. 
He  stands  at  my  chair  while  I  give  my 
directions.  He  feels  my  shrinking,  and 
takes  a  diabolical  pleasure  in  coming  as 
often  to  the  office  as  he  can.  Then  I  dic- 
tate some  letters  to  my  stenographer — a 
typical  lower  middle-class  English  girl, 
with  a  thick  coil  of  hair  dressed  low,  and 
a  string  of  tiny  false  pearls  around  the 
neck  of  her  collarless  blouse.  Then  I 
leave  the  room,  ostensibly  to  wash  my 
hands,  in  reality  to  crouch  down  in  the 
grinding  horror  of  the  toilet-room  in  front 
of  the  cracked  looking-glass  and  broken 
cup  on  the  shelf,  and  ask  myself  how  long 
I  can  stand  this,  and  why,  in  the  name  of 
common  sense,  I  am  standing  it  at  all. 

There  is  a  ceaseless  oozing  of  horror 
from  the  tenements  of  the  opposite  street. 
Men  staggering  up  it,  constantly  yelling 
240 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

things;  women,  overflowing  their  clothes, 
with  bloated  faces,  and  striking  at  any 
children  that  belong  to  them.  Suddenly 
there  will  be  a  rush  of  voices,  a  trampling 
of  feet,  and  a  man,  with  a  blood-stained 
bandage  around  his  head,  will  be  half 
carried  up  the  street,  held  on  either  side 
by  a  policeman  and  a  woman.  I  opened 
my  eyes  too  soon  one  day — the  man  had 
fallen  on  the  steps.  I  had  never  seen  a 
human  being  fall  before.  It  clutched  your 
heart  with  mysterious  terror.  Policemen, 
whose  existence  in  the  world  had  been  be- 
fore to  me  vaguely  a  matter  of  crowded 
street  crossings,  suddenly  enlarged  into  a 
haven  for  my  eyes  when  I  walked  through 
the  streets.  The  stiff  helmets,  the  blue 
uniform,  the  broad  shoulders,  represented 
actual  personal  safety  to  my  scorched 
knowledge  of  life  in  other  streets. 

The  very  sound  of  the  factory  girls 
singing  and  laughing  as  they  poured  out 
241 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

of  the  buildings  at  the  noon  hour  froze  me 
with  fear.  They  would  walk  four  abreast, 
their  arms  linked,  the  limp  feathers  in 
their  hats  nodding  over  their  broad,  strong 
faces.  I  met  them  once  suddenly  face  to 
face  when  by  chance  I  was  on  the  street 
and  turned  a  corner.  I  shrank  to  one  side. 
I  seemed  suddenly  a  thing  they  could 
break  between  their  fingers.  I  was  afraid 
of  the  heavy  red  hands  that  waved  negli- 
gently as  they  walked  in  unison  to  their 
hoarse  singing.  My  very  clothes  seemed 
grotesque.  I  felt  myself  a  poster  of  some 
far-away  play  hung  in  a  low  street,  and  in 
a  place  to  be  spattered  by  the  slimy  mud 
of  the  traffic.  These  women,  these  people, 
were  like  spirits  of  a  political  revolution 
swarming  out  of  their  burrows,  wallowing 
in  their  blood  and  dirt,  and  feasting  on 
their  yells  and  drunkenness.  1  seemed  to 
hear  the  far-away  drums  of  the  women 
who  marched  to  Versailles. 


The  Park  was  empty  when  I  came  to  it 
to-day,  the  wide  fields  were  veiled  in  the 
ambiguous  early  twilight  of  the  wet  air. 
The  trees  were  subdued,  overweighted,  the 
flowers  pressed  down  into  the  water- 
soaked  mould;  but  through  it  all,  over  it 
all,  like  the  magnetism  of  life,  drenched 
the  penetrating  sweetness  of  the  earth 
smell,  the  London  haze  that  clung  to 
everything  as  the  skies  and  the  world  met 
in  the  upright,  fairy  stream. 

This  was  not  the  Park  I  had  known; 
this  was  only  a  Park  with  memories,  or 
a  present  of  exquisite  closed  secrets. 

Yet  it  was  elemental;  I  recognised  that; 
as  elemental,  as  necessary,  as  the  incident 
of  birth,  the  ignorance  of  childhood:  the 
rain  could  make  me  shudder  even  though' 
I  loved  it.  It  paled  my  face  when  I  re- 
alised that  I  could  no  longer  return  to 
childish  things. 

243 


I  thought  I  might  catch  a  half -hour  at 
the  pictures  on  this  ghost-like  afternoon, 
and  was  driven  through  the  silent  open 
mud,  under  the  overhanging  arches  of  St. 
James's  Park — the  Park  of  the  magical 
waterways,  of  the  silver  swans,  all  drown- 
ing in  saffron  wet  mist,  past  the  Carlton, 
where  I  saw  for  a  moment  the  fog  curve 
to  the  form  of  purple  orchids,  to  the  stone 
lions  of  Trafalgar  Square.  I  shut  my 
eyes.  I  was  near  by,  a  little  too  brutally 
close,  to  something  I  did  not  want  to  see. 
I  hurried  up  the  steps  of  the  National 
Gallery,  but  I  was  ashamed  of  my  fear 
and  turned  to  face  it.  Down  over  White- 
hall to  Parliament  Square:  the  towers  of 
St.  Stephen's  fluted  through  the  mist. 
Again  it  was  a  picture — an  engraving 
made  on  metal  by  fire,  only  the  luminous 
softness  of  tempered  light,  nothing  more. 
I  thought  it  beautiful,  as  I  would  think 
any  other  pillared  tower  beautiful  that  was 
244 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

clasped  and  wreathed  by  the  changing 
foam  of  the  hazy  waves  of  rain.  We 
looked  at  each  other,  and  the  quiet  of  the 
stones  was  not  quieter  than  my  heart. 

The  staircase  opened  out  its  curve  be- 
fore me;  it  implied  a  shelter  as  I  went 
slowly  up  and  caught  the  changing  flames 
of  the  ether  of  new  worlds  in  the  planes  of 
rose  and  purple  and  green.  But  they  re- 
treated, closed,  dimmed,  as  we  lose  the 
reflection  of  the  sky  in  still  water,  if  we 
bend  over  to  see  more  closely;  and  I  pant- 
ed to  them  hungrily,  more  hungrily  for 
what  I  wanted  to  desire,  than  for  what  I 
really  missed. 

I  reached  the  rooms  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelites.  I  had  not  before  cared  for 
them  very  much,  but  to-day  the  even  rows 
of  angels  in  the  pallid  air,  the  blond  skies 
and  pale  earth,  the  unfaded  ashen  roses, 
the  aureoles  of  gold  made  of  the  texture 
245 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

of  extinct  dreams,  gathered  me  to  their 
ethereal  peace. 

I  had  forgotten ;  but,  even  so,  there  had 
been  nothing  to  remember.  Yet  one  small 
black  fact  crept  venomously  to  me  out  of 
the  sequestered  silence  of  that  year.  I 
must  meet  him  again.  No  matter  what 
he  might  ever  say  or  do  throughout  my 
life,  I  must  revenge  that  year,  or  forgive 
that  year;  and  I  do  not  come  of  a  race 
that  forgives,  and  I  am  not  afraid  of  the 
bitter  ecstasy  of  revenge.  The  mere  fact 
of  seeing  unbars  the  door  to  that  inner 
monster  that  claws  at  my  will  and  de- 
mands to  be  satisfied  with  cruelty. 

For  everything  I  have  done,  all  the  pain 
endured,  all  the  danger,  was  made  possi- 
ble by  him.  It  was  well  enough  for  him 
to  guard  me;  but  did  he  think,  if  once 
started,  how  I  would  guard  myself?  He 
knew  I  was  a  woman  who  would  make 
reality  into  some  barbarous  excess.  No 
246 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

one  else  had  the  power  to  take  me  out  of 
my  dream  world.  He  was  the  only  human 
being  to  whom  I  would  confess  humanity. 
He  is  responsible  for  it  all — everything, 
and  everything  I  ever  do. 

I  remember  once— in  the  illness,  when 
they  touched  me — I  screamed  with  the 
pain.  If  I  could  see  him  bound,  and  hear 
him  scream  once — just  once — I  would  be 
satisfied;  just  to  see  him  look  up  as  hurt 
people  do,  asking  all  that  is  pitiless  for 
help,  and  to  hear  him  scream  once  with 
the  pain. 

But  I  am  not  ready  for  moods  like  that. 
I  have  my  life  to  make.  I  have  the  joy 
and  the  beauty  of  the  world  to  fathom.  I 
have  no  time — no  time  yet  for  those  retro- 
gressive satisfactions.  I  would  rather 
gratify  the  desires  of  the  woman  of  the 
twentieth  century  than  pander  to  the  pas- 
sion of  the  creature  of  the  stone  age. 

I  am  in  London.  I  hear  always  the 
24?; 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

tempered  sound,  like  the  distant  sound  of 
a  sea;  but  I  might  just  as  well  be  in  the 
midst  of  a  prairie  for  all  the  life  of  Lon- 
don, the  real  life,  I  can  make  mine — the 
real  life,  marble  and  orchids  and  men 
whose  names  are  the  sign-posts  of  history 
—the  crossroads  where  nations  pause  un- 
certainly. 

I  must  write  to  him  soon,  of  course.  It 
is  August  now;  I  can't  put  it  off  very 
much  longer.  He  is  in  town  only  for  five 
days  more.  It  was  in  the  Morning  Post 
that  he  leaves  for  Homburg  on  the  5th. 

Mysteriously,  the  hatefulness  and 
strange  horror  of  this  life,  the  very  ob- 
scure horror  of  the  tenements,  has  become 
a  black  place  where  I  have  found  I  can 
hide  myself.  Once  I  let  him  know  I  am 
here,  this  must  end.  Then  the  old  nerve- 
racking  tug-of-war  as  to  will  and  suprem- 
acy will  begin.  I  know  his  influence  over 
248 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

me.     He  would  pour  my  life  into  a  cup 
and  drink  it  up. 

I  let  him  come  here,  to  this  sordid  bleak 
place  with  the  wooden  staircase,  the  filthy 
tenements  opposite,  the  muddy  streets.  It 
was  after  five;  I  sent  the  stenographer 
away  early.  I  wanted  to  have  time  to 
carefully  clamp  my  mind  with  being  alone, 
first.  The  huge  blind  on  the  window  was 
up,  showing  the  moist  grey  air,  and  the 
occasional  yellow,  trembling  street  lights. 
I  wanted  nothing  that  suggested  our  be- 
ing alone.  The  electric  lamps  in  the  of- 
fice were  spurting  under  their  green 
shades,  my  roll-top  desk  was  open  and 
seethed  with  papers.  Occasionally,  when 
I  could  hear  the  rumble  of  something  that 
was  not  the  wheels  of  a  truck,  my  blood 
would  weigh  in  my  eyelids  till  they  fell 
over  my  eyes. 

And  then  the  wheels  came  that  stopped. 
249 


BUCKINGHAM  GATE 

October. — He  commenced  the  usual 
scene  this  afternoon. 

"If  I  could  only  believe,  when  I  come 
into  the  room,  that  it  is  love  you  are  think- 
ing of.  But  you  never  give  yourself  up, 
you  are  always  self-conscious.  You  never 
lose  sight  of  yourself  for  a  moment." 

The  expression  on  his  face  was  familiar. 

"No,  not  when  there  are  two  such  lovely 
Venetian  mirrors  in  the  room,"  I  an- 
swered mildly.  "I  couldn't  resist  letting 
you  take  the  flat  when  I  saw  them.  Vene- 
tian glass  is  my  passion,  you  know — it 
simply  compels  me,  draws  me  almost  like 
a  spell."  I  pulled  myself  away  and  wan- 
dered over  to  the  mantel,  where  I  could 
250 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

move  the  tips  of  my  fingers  up  and  down 
on  the  bowls  and  flagons. 

"So  that  was  it,  was  it?  You  were  not 
thinking  of  me,  you  were  not  thinking  of 
being  able  to  be  with  me  here,  of  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  me  here — you  were  thinking 
only  of  the  Venetian  glass."  He  expand- 
ed with  rage. 

"Not  only  of  the  glass,  Oscar,"  I  cor- 
rected gently;  "the  curtains  are  very  beau- 
tiful." I  was  just  going  on  in  a  most 
interesting  way  to  enlarge  on  the  beautiful 
colour  of  the  curtains  when  he  became 
angry  and  left,  and  so  I  was  able  after  all 
to  get  to  the  Zarathustra  at  Queen's  Hall. 
I  was  so  afraid  I  would  be  late  for  it. 

My  mind  and  I  are  just  sitting  tenta- 
tively on  these  green  chairs  for  a  few 
weeks  so  that  we  can  decide  what  we  really 
want  to  do. 

At  least  I  have  time  now  for  the  con- 
251 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

certs,  the  picture  galleries,  am  able  to  read 
again. 

The  incident  of  being  an  editor  almost 
eclipsed  the  fact  of  my  being  a  woman. 
We  are  not  built  to  go  out  in  all  weathers 
and  sit  in  a  stiff  chair  from  ten  to  five. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  House — if  it 
hadn't  been  for  the  careless  weakness  of  a 
corrosive  drug — did  me  far  less  harm 
physically  than  conducting  the  literary 
policy  of  a  magazine;  than  those  iron- 
bound  months  of  getting  money  by  my 
brains. 

I  look  at  it  quite  impartially,  because, 
strictly  speaking,  I  am  really  an  extremely 
well-educated  woman  and  quite  clever— 
quite  above  the  average  woman  in  intelli- 
gence. 

And  how  very  much  more  interesting  it 

was!  how  many  more  interesting  people  I 

met!     Fast  women  are  necessarily  only; 

with  rich  men,  and  very  often  with  the 

252 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

cleverest  men  the  world  has:  a  man  under 
those  circumstances  gives  the  very  best  of 
his  mind — for  he  would  loathe  to  be  re- 
fused— and  with  me  they  knew  what  was 
the  price.  The  nights  when  we  have  talked 
the  dawn  in  and  it  has  found  the  man  still 
huddled,  wan,  and  stripping  his  soul.  I 
can  get  again  the  faint  dead  smell  of  the 
flowers  drooping  in  the  ashy  smoke  and 
the  clink  of  new  life  as  the  bowls  of  ice 
came  in  and  the  hiss  of  the  wine  bubbled 
up  again  in  the  glass.  And  then  we  would 
close  out  the  day,  the  grey  ghost  trees,  the 
keen  smell  of  the  reddening  sky. 

Tuesday. — I  sometimes  wonder  as  I 
look  at  it  all  if  there  is  anything  in  it  for 
me.  I  don't  want  to  be  welded  into  any- 
body's life  like  an  expensive  painting.  I 
don't  want  to  add  to  the  decoration  of 
other  people's  days.  My  life  is  for  myself. 
253 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Every  minute  I  live  wants  to  be  for  some 
tangible  benefit  to  myself. 

And  Oscar  torments  me  so  by  his  absurd 
assumption  of  outworn  ideas,  that  one- 
third  of  my  time  is  spent  in  yielding  to 
him,  and  two-thirds  in  furious  mental  pro- 
tests against  the  false  situation.  If  he 
would  only  recognise  that  he  is  merely  use- 
ful, that  he  is  an  experience,  that  I've  got 
to  have  some  money  from  somewhere,  now 
that  I  have  left  that  devastating  Salon. 
But  he  assumes  that  I  am  dedicating  my 
life  to  him  and  that  my  fount  of  life  is 
my  bank  account.  So  it  is,  but  not  exactly 
in  the  way  he  means. 

Oh,  for  money  of  my  own! 

What  a  happy  woman  Cleopatra  was! 
A  few  gorgeously  built  male  slaves,  and 
then  kill  them  off  in  the  morning.  Off 
with  his  head!  O  du  lieber  Himmel!  it's 
all  very  well  to  laugh,  but  men  are  such 
horrors  if  you  are  dependent  on  them. 
254. 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Saturday. — I  am  corroded  by  his  mood. 
I  am,  after  all,  human — based  on  the 
beast,  and  he  appeals  to  me  in  the  fiercest 
strength  of  life.  He  owns  me,  and  exults 
in  all  that  our  humanity  makes  possible. 

Not  that  I  care,  that  I  think  there  is 
anything  better;  but  I  want  the  other  too, 
and  he  is  blinding  me  to  music,  he  comes 
between  me  and  the  pleasure  of  colour,  he 
makes  himself  the  sum  of  life  to  me,  he 
makes  me  as  mad  as  himself. 

But  I  know  myself.  If  I  am  drowned 
in  it,  he  must  be  drowned  in  it  too — and 
I  loathe  being  serious. 

How  tired  I  am  of  all  this  plunging  up 
and  down  in  the  scale  of  things!  With 
other  men  I  am  looking  on,  they  never 
seemed  to  get  into  the  world  where  I  live, 
they  were  only  the  varnish  on  the  idea 
of  Italy,  the  frame  of  Stockholm,  a  nail 
on  which  to  hang  the  music  of  Berlin. 
255 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Tools,  stepping-stones,  the  opportunity  to 
escape,  escape  from  the  clamp  of  circum- 
stance that  rusts  into  your  body  if  it  is 
not  broken  by  emotion. 

Ah,  if  I  could  only  lie  back  and  take 
life  with  open  arms! 

December. — I  sit  and  look  at  the  Vene- 
tian mirrors,  the  Venetian  sconces,  the 
Venetian  vases:  they  are  tranquil,  cold, 
lovely. 

I  have  only  mignonette  in  them  and 
white  narcissus.  Colour  is  getting  now 
to  weigh  on  my  nerves  like  a  blow. 

His  face  was  distorted  when  he  pressed 
me  down  on  the  floor  between  his  knees. 
"Say  you  will  be  faithful  to  me,  promise 
you  will  be  faithful  to  me."  Faithful  to 
him — and  he  has  his  wife! 

Oh,  but  he  dismembers  each  day  when 
he  comes,  each  minute,  each  week,  with 
his  violence !  He  rips  my  mind  in  pieces, 
256 


he  hurts  my  flesh.  I  wait  quivering  in  the 
midst  of  it  all  for  the  storm  of  kisses  that 
beat  me  down  into  silence,  that  conquer 
me  like  blows,  that  make  me  a  whipped 
slave  to  do  what  he  likes  with. 

Yet  he  is  the  only  man  who  can  kiss  me 
into  that  strange  unconsciousness,  that 
death  of  will  that  makes  you  a  thing  mere- 
ly of  flesh.  I  read  once  of  how  boa-con- 
strictors get  their  food  ready  to  eat. 

I  shudder  when  he  drags  me  to  him, 
when  he  pushes  my  throat  back,  yet  I  wait 
for  that  sudden  oblivion  that  will  leave  me 
helpless. 

He  is  vampiring  my  senses,  he  is  drag- 
ging me  nearer  and  nearer  each  time  to 
some  flood  that  will  smother  us  both. 
Oscar,  let  me  go! 


257 


MONTE  CARLO 
I 

January. — It  knew  I  would  come  back, 
my  exquisite,  make-believe  world,  the 
place  of  unreality  and  nerves,  the  sun,  and 
of  the  altar  of  Chance. 

I  am  quite  care-free ;  no  one  expects  me 
to  be  anything  but  myself.  I  stand  aside, 
I  watch  life,  I  am  deliciously  alone.  I 
can  hardly  repress  myself  from  spreading 
out  my  hands  in  visible  ecstasy  when  I  first 
go  out  in  the  extreme  morning  air  and 
meet  the  golden  waves  of  the  sun,  the 
spring  coolness  of  the  earth's  smell,  the 
pressure  of  the  flowers'  perfume,  the  daz- 
zling horizon  of  the  diamond- faceted  sea. 
At  night  when  I  leave  the  Casino  the  con- 
vex sky,  hung  in  constellations  of  jewels, 
258 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

dips  through  the  lines  of  the  palm  fronds, 
and  the  darkness  is  Nature  living,  shel- 
tered in  the  shadowed  petals  of  unseen 
roses. 

Everything  is  shut  away  by  the  click 
of  the  little  sibilant  balls  as  they  whirl  to 
the  touch  of  Fate,  and  life  rises  and  falls 
to  the  drip  of  the  cards  as  they  fall  endless- 
ly, making  the  scale  of  Fate  sway  up  and 
down. 

The  Riviera  Palace  Hotel. — This 
seemed  still  further  away,  still  more  re- 
moved. I  have  a  terror  of  masses  of  peo- 
ple, of  being  near  my  kind.  This  moun- 
tain ledge  paved  with  flowers,  where  I 
step  from  my  white  bedroom  to  the  Ter- 
race set  austerely  with  its  hyacinths  and 
cactus,  is  held  far  above  the  burning  blue 
of  the  sea,  the  little  gilt-crowned  world 
that  lies  on  the  shore. 

As  I  take  tea  in  the  corridor  in  the  late 
259 


afternoon  the  huge  windows  become  trans- 
muted mirrors  and  shadow  the  marble  col- 
umns till  they  stretch  out  on  the  sunset- 
flushed  sea  and  sky  in  endless  colonnades 
of  mystic  castles. 

I  am  so  glad  to  be  alone.  I  stretch  out 
my  arms  to  myself  and  gather  back  all  the 
wounded,  distracted  selves  that  have  borne 
the  past  two  years. 

I  have  been  tormented  by  the  sudden 
wish  to  gamble  again.  I  look  at  the  wish 
with  a  sort  of  sullen  surprise.  I  have  no 
intention  of  risking  the  money  I  have;  it 
was  earned  too  brutally  to  let  me  be  will- 
ing to  risk  having  to  earn  any  more  that 
way. 

Out  of  the  world  up  here,  surrounded 
and  calmed  by  the  quiet  garden  walks  of 
transplanted  flowers,  I  have  no  need  to  go 
down  into  the  spiked  sensations  that  come 
with  the  oscillation  of  Fate.  I  like  to  see 
260 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

my  Fate  still,  undisturbed,  for  a  while, 
like  the  curved  petals  of  the  lilies  that 
lie  sheltered  in  the  artificial  pools. 

When  I  went  into  the  Rooms  to-night 
I  came  face  to  face  with  my  lover  of  Little 
Hungary. 

The  world  rocked,  and  the  blinding  well 
of  electricity  was  whirled  up  at  my  feet. 
I  caught  my  senses  in  my  hand  to  steady 
them.  I  was  drowning  in  the  same  tor- 
rent of  stars  and  fire  and  intoxication.  He 
was  there,  I  would  see  him  again,  he  was 
in  the  world,  it  had  not  been  a  dream.  He 
was  real,  not  the  half  vision  of  a  stray  god 
that  I  changed  the  memory  to;  the  blood 
hummed  in  my  ears.  You  cannot  seem 
dazed  in  the  gambling  rooms;  ecstasy 
seems  there  to  mean  a  practical  madness. 
I  turned  to  a  near-by  table  and  put  down 
some  napoleons,  anywhere,  anything,  so 
261 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

that    I    could   have    an    excuse    for   my; 
changed,  heart-swept  face. 

And  then,  when  I  raised  my  eyes,  he 
was  before  me.  I  met  his  eyes — he  and 
I — with  consciousness  face  to  face.  And 
then,  the  invisible  flood  roaring  to  my  lips, 
I  fled  from  the  Rooms.  I  would  have 
fainted  if  I  had  stayed.  But  he  is  here, 
I  shall  see  him  again;  but  I  must  wait, 
wait,  I  am  not  able  yet,  I  am  blinded  yet. 

I  feel  as  though  I  had  been  drinking 
electric  light ;  all  my  life  between  to-night 
and  Little  Hungary  has  shrivelled  like 
paper  in  fire.  He  is  here — the  pulse  of 
the  world  to  me,  the  man  who  made  life 
life  to  me.  I  am  staggering  as  though 
I  had  been  caught,  and  flung  into  a  sea 
of  fire,  that  had  turned  me  into  itself,  and 
made  me  leap  with  its  flames.  The 
thought  that  he  is  here  is  enough,  it  is 
drowning  me  in  delight. 
262 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Sunday  Afternoon. — There  is  a  corner 
of  the  grounds  where  the  cliff  juts  out 
like  a  wall  and  makes  on  the  other  side  a 
mountain  grotto.  They  have  trained 
heliotrope  over  it,  and  the  top  of  the  wall 
is  planted  with  pink  geraniums.  I  took 
my  book  to  the  chair  there  this  afternoon. 
Pater,  the  most  artificial  and  exquisite 
thing  I  know,  Greek  statuary  in  prose. 
But  I  could  see  the  sea,  tremulous  against 
the  horizon,  and  I  rested  idle  without  read- 
ing, my  whole  body  and  senses  bathed  in 
the  ineffable  wholeness  of  life,  my  being 
alive,  and  in  the  sight  of  his  eyes. 

A  whole  day  of  uncounted  rapture,  the 
mere  fact  of  existence  is  enough;  his  life 
near  seems  to  consume  mine  and  radiate 
like  the  flame  of  a  dominating  planet. 

Monday  Morning. — The  maid  brought 
my  coffee  as  usual  this  morning,  and  drew 
the  cord  that  kept  the  blue  silk  curtains 
263 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

together.  The  sun  rushed  in  and  sparkled 
on  the  silver  and  the  pink  paper  of  the 
Morning  Telegram.  I  opened  it  with  the 
feeling  that  it  might  have  some  mention 
of  his  name. 

And  then  a  paragraph  blistered  before 
my  eyes:  "W.  V.  Kemp  leaves  for  Paris 
to-day  after  a  short  stay  at  the  Hotel  de 
Paris."  I  crowded  down  in  the  bed,  my 
eyes  blind. 

I  am  so  tired  of  life — the  eternal  strug- 
gle, the  never-reached  peace.  Yet  the 
peace  was  there.  I  knew  the  wrorld  held 
for  me  utter,  complete  satisfaction — his 
abominable  money,  his  miserable  wealth. 
If  he  were  only  poor — I  could  speak, 
write,  go — what  do  I  care  for  his  money? 
All  it  does  is  to  close  him  in  by  a  wall  and 
shut  him  from  me. 

But  his  beggarly  wealth  at  least  keeps 
him  in  the  papers,  will  always  let  me  know 
where  he  is ;  and  when  I  can  pay  the  price, 
264 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

when  once  I  have  the  money  that  will  let 
me  go  with  the  people  I  know,  I  can  meet 
him.  Birth,  brains,  youth — all  I  want  is 
the  money,  the  miserable,  miserable  money 
— and  I  am  so  tired,  so  tired !  I  had  strug- 
gled so,  and  now  the  old  struggle  must 
commence  all  over  again.  Stone  walls, 
palls  of  fire,  upright  swords. 

I  have  been  struck  too  hard  by  life.  I 
drag  my  brokenness  away  like  a  wounded 
dog  to  get  knit  again  and  ready  to  fight. 
Life  lies  at  the  edge  of  things  ready  to 
tear  me  with  its  claws.  But  for  a  little 
while  I  am  going  to  rest,  to  set  myself, 
like  a  watch,  and  see  if  my  nerves  and 
body  are  under  control.  I've  got  to  use 
them  again,  I  must  do  something;  but  now 
I  have  crept  out  of  life  just  to  warm  my- 
self, to  fill  myself  with  the  wine  and 
glamour  of  the  sun — to  draw  it  into  my 
veins  and  heart,  the  blood  of  the  world. 
I  have  been  sapped  dry  of  vitality. 
265 


MONTE  CARLO 
II 

March. — The  Englishman  has  followed 
me  very  persistently  and  I  have  hardly 
noticed.  I  have  always  dimly  surmised 
that  he  was  there,  and  taken  it  for  granted 
that  it  would  be  he  who  would  see  that 
the  servants  came  out  quickly  if  I  wanted 
my  chair  moved  or  tea  brought.  He  would 
divine,  it  seemed,  what  I  wanted,  and  that 
I  also  wanted  to  be  let  alone  and  not  to 
talk,  not  to  meet  anyone. 

He  is  more  or  less  an  invalid,  I  imagine ; 
he  never  goes  to  the  Rooms,  but  stays  up 
here  all  day  lying  in  the  sun. 

It  is  the  Berlioz  celebration,  and  I  never 
conceived  or  imagined  or  dreamed  that 
mere  lights  on  a  white  chateau,  in  the 
266 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

tropical  trees,  on  the  curved  Terrace,  and 
a  hilly  street  leading  sideways  down  to 
the  amethyst  sea,  could  be  so  celestially 
lovely.  Monte  Carlo  was  covered  by  a 
network  of  descended  stars.  I  almost 
laughed  at  the  marvel  of  it,  at  the  delight 
of  the  transcendent  myriad  lights  that  had 
fastened  themselves  to  everything  like  a 
cloud  of  stellar  parasites  devouring  the 
marble  and  palms. 

I  went  down  to  the  Casino  Terrace  to 
see  it  all,  and  walked  up  and  down  ec- 
statically, contentedly,  alone.  But  always 
I  was  conscious  of  the  tall  figure  in  the 
long  ulster,  keeping  carefully  in  the  back- 
ground, but  so  obviously  fearful  of  the 
consequences  of  a  woman  walking  alone 
at  night  on  the  Terrace  at  Monte  Carlo. 
How  foolish!  This  is  the  capital  of  mad- 
ness, of  dreams,  of  the  inversion  of  the 
usual  practicality.  He  would  expect 
267 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

babes  to  buckle  on  swords,  and  cats  to 
turn  from  saucers  of  cream. 

It  amused  me,  but  made  me  a  little  im- 
patient. I  have  so  long  been  face  to  face 
with  deeper  dangers,  that  a  snatch  at  my 
purse  is  not  very  much  dreaded;  and  I 
am  so  palpably  a  woman  accustomed  to 
being  taken  care  of,  that  no  one  would 
dream  that  a  husband  or  a  brother  was 
not  only  by  chance  away. 

I  couldn't  make  up  my  mind  to  go  to 
bed  last  night,  and  so,  a  little  after  eleven, 
I  unlatched  my  door  window  again,  and 
went  out  on  the  Terrace.  Why  can't 
people  stay  up  all  night  and  sleep  all  the 
garish  morning?  It  was  a  disclosed  rap- 
ture of  ethereal  perfume  and  translucent 
greenness  and  glittering  dew-wet  flowers. 
I  went  over  to  the  balustrade,  cloakless, 
without  even  a  scarf,  and  opened  my 
hands  out  on  the  cool  stone  ledge.  I  heard 
268 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

then  the  impatient  opening  of  another  of 
the  doors  and  a  man's  hasty  walk  behind 
me.  The  Englishman  strode  up  to  me, 
his  ulster  half  dragged  on  over  his  even- 
ing dress. 

"Aren't  you  afraid  of  taking  cold?"  he 
asked  rather  harshly.  "Please  put  this 
on."  "This"  was  a  driving  coat,  and  he 
seemed  perfectly  unsurprised,  and  so  was 
I,  when  I  meekly  turned  and  let  him  help 
me  on  with  it. 

Friday. — I  am  not  in  the  least  a  pas- 
sionate woman,  hardly  even  sensual — 
merely  inordinately  curious,  colossally  am- 
bitious, and  supremely  emancipated  from 
the  accustomed  prejudices  concerning  the 
vital  actions  of  life.  But  there  is  no  doubt 
about  it,  I  must  face  it,  that  I  enjoy  the 
Englishman's  being  with  me;  the  rest  of 
his  looking  after  me,  ordering  the  coach- 
man, the  servants,  pouring  my  tea,  carry- 
269 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ing  my  furs,  lighting  my  cigarettes.  He 
has  a  lascivious  little  trick  of  doing  this, 
transferring  it  from  his  lips  to  mine;  it 
is  like  the  lustfulness  of  a  Puck  or  adoles- 
cent faun.  You  can  almost  see  the  twinkle 
of  the  pointed  furry  ears  in  the  action. 
And  I  yield,  I  even  smoke  the  cigarettes. 
Tom  is  deliciously  attractive  to  me  in  the 
way  a  young  unspoiled  satyr  would  be  if 
it  should  spring  living  out  of  the  marble 
in  the  moss  and  fountains  of  the  Borghese 
Gardens. 

That  kiss  has  never  been  repeated;  he 
understands  it  would  be  useless  to  ask, 
and  there  is  far  more  amusement  in  the 
denial  than  there  would  be  in  the  climax. 
Climax  or  denial,  I  am  always  indifferent 
which,  but  one  must  be  amused.  He  is 
essentially  unspoiled;  you  can  think  of 
him  as  being  frigidly,  unconsciously,  in- 
herently the  essence  of  honour,  honour 
that  has  never  felt  the  sooty  fingers  of  a 
270 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

woman's  inquisitive  hand  to  test  its  tex- 
ture. 

He  has  all  the  suggestion  of  domineer- 
ing pride  that  men  of  the  conquering  white 
nation  get  in  India.  India  gives  a  pecu- 
liar hardening  of  the  mouth  to  English- 
men; and  Tom  is  so  young — about  thirty 
perhaps — so  nervous,  instinctive,  supple 
to  feeling,  that  the  race  pride  sits  on  him 
as  quaintly  as  the  little  laughing  furry 
ears  of  crass  instinct  that  curve  up  now 
and  then. 

We  are  always  together;  we  drive,  tea, 
breakfast,  and  have  walks,  with  a  carriage 
following  to  take  us  up  when  he  grows 
tired;  then  I  take  supper  with  him  some- 
times at  Giro's  or  dine  at  the  Hotel  de 
Paris. 

But  the  favourite  thing  of  all  we  do  is 

to  go  to  a  fairy  place  we  have  found  in 

the  ramparts  of  Monaco.    A  nook  away 

down  the  cliff  set  in  the  stone  wall,  a  deep 

271 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

embrasure  with  an  arched  opening  looking 
out  on  the  harbour  and  the  half-hoop  of 
the  Casino  Terrace.  The  ledge  is  wide- 
wide  enough  to  sit  on  without  growing 
dizzy  by  looking  at  the  depths  below ;  and 
here  we  bring  rugs  and  cushions  and  can- 
died fruits  for  me,  and  cigarettes  and 
books,  and  lounge  and  read  and  talk. 


273 


MONTE  CARLO 
III 

April. — He  wants  me  so  much  to  marry 
him.  I  like  him  so  much,  the  sudden  rest 
from  all  struggle  would  be  so  great,  that 
I  am  almost  tempted  to  do  it.  It  is  al- 
ways so  easy  to  do  the  proper  thing.  It 
takes  such  tremendous  moral  courage  to 
do  what  is  called  wrong. 

He  is  impatient,  eager,  almost  queru- 
lous, like  all  invalids;  and  the  strain  of 
being  denied  what  really  there  is  no  rea- 
son I  should  not  consent  to,  were  it  not  for 
an  unplanned,  obscure  goal  in  my  own 
mind,  is  keeping  him  in  an  unnatural 
fever. 

As  he  pleads,  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  not  be  married  at  once.  I  have  no 
273 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

one  to  ask,  he  would  blot  out  the  rest  of 
the  world  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  so 
long  as  he  could  take  that  villa  on  the  way 
to  Cap  d'CEil  and  be  married  to  me  by 
the  English  clergyman  in  Xice.  At  once, 
at  once — there  is  no  reason  to  wait.  With 
his  love  for  me  there  may  be  the  wish  of 
the  sick  man  to  be  free  from  worry,  and 
to  be  quiet  and  petted  and  have  the  own- 
ership of  what  he  wants. 

But  surely  I  have  earned  the  peace  of 
a  few  weeks,  the  pleasure  of  taking  up 
look  by  look  the  love  that  spreads  at  my 
feet. 

I  enjoy  having  him  near  me;  he  seems 
to  spend  his  whole  being  in  the  warmth 
of  the  thing  that  burns  him :  he  is  clutched 
by  it,  held  by  it,  and  all  the  energy  of  his 
vitality  is  poured  into  a  grail  of  passion. 

People  are  just  so  much  vitality,  elec- 
tricity, to  each  other.  We  consume  or 
274 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

are  consumed.  Oscar  drains  my  very  veins 
of  their  blood.  I  am  wan  and  attenuated 
after  being  with  him.  His  kiss  eats  down 
in  the  fibre  of  my  heart  and  robs  a  pulse 
from  every  minute. 

The  other  to  me — that  staggers 
thought.  But  this  thing  I  drink  like  the 
cup  of  the  world's  life. 

Thursday. — We  drove  to  the  Eden 
Hotel  for  tea  this  afternoon ;  we  got  back 
for  a  couple  of  hours  to  the  Garden  of 
Eden.  We  passed  the  villa  on  the  way 
with  its  closed  windows  and  wallflower 
blossom  enclosure,  and  the  shimmer  of 
the  blue  enamel  of  the  Mediterranean 
through  the  rows  of  cypress  trees  at  the 
foot  of  the  garden  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff. 
It  would  be  peace  well  enough;  his  hand 
groped  for  mine  and  I  let  him  find  it. 
Perfume  and  the  sun  always  subdue  me 
like  the  beat  of  music.  How  the  policy 
275 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

of  nations  would  be  inverted  if  sympho- 
nies were  played  during  Cabinet  meet- 
ings !  Even  to  men  who  were  unconscious 
of  the  beauty,  who  only  heard  it  like  the 
rattle  of  the  streets,  calculated  rhythm  and 
intervals  would  unconsciously  control 
their  blood.  Sound  is  physical,  the  sun 
and  perfume  and  silence  of  gardens  are 
physical,  and  bind  us  like  bands  and  lead 
us  like  the  promise  of  passionate  eyes. 

When  we  came,  though,  to  a  curve  in 
the  road,  our  carriage  stopped  and  the 
coachman  raised  his  hat.  A  funeral — the 
coffin  carried  on  an  open  bier — was  sway- 
ing slowly  through  the  gate  of  a  hidden 
cemetery.  I  drew  my  hand  away,  and  the 
bitter  chill  that  any  recognition  of  the 
facts  of  humanity  always  brings  to  me  set- 
tled over  the  sun  and  filled  the  air  with 
the  odour  of  dead  things  and  the  cry  of 
universal  pain.  The  pain-linked  world, 
it  poisoned  the  clinging  of  his  fingers;  to 
276 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

other  women  that  meant  marriage,  chil- 
dren, more  pain,  more  lives  to  agonise. 
It  was  a  trick,  this  love — a  blind,  a  baited 
hook,  the  glare  of  plumage  on  birds,  the 
mane  of  beasts,  the  veil  of  lies  on  human- 
ity. 

I  did  not  want  to  go  inside  when  we 
came  to  the  hotel.  I  wanted  the  illusion 
of  the  air  yet,  the  vision  moments  of  the 
flower-separated  sky  and  sea.  We  went 
silently  down  a  row  of  broad  steps  bor- 
dered by  a  low  wall  covered  with  flame- 
coloured  nasturtiums.  At  the  foot  was 
a  ruined  Grecian  temple  where  the  nas- 
turtiums dripped  their  vermilion  glory 
from  the  shattered  plinth  to  the  pedestal ; 
the  blood  of  many  sacrifices  to  distant 
gods  flowered  in  perpetual  oblation.  Be- 
hind a  clump  of  olive  trees  and  cactus 
there  was  a  round  corner  jutting  out  to 
the  sea  and  overgrown  with  white  haw- 
thorn and  heliotrope.  We  drew  our  chairs 
277 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

there,  the  deep  lounging  wicker  chairs  that 
yield  and  yet  let  the  air  touch  you,  and  I 
leaned  back,  my  hat  off,  and  Tom  lighted 
my  cigarettes  for  me.  We  did  not  talk 
very  much  or  break  the  transfigured  after- 
noon ;  we  let  the  gods  lend  us  a  glimpse  of 
Eden. 

I  was  happy,  utterly  happy  for  the 
moment.  I  am  very  fond  of  Tom,  and 
Nature  makes  her  illusions  beautifully. 
There  is  no  doubt  about  it,  while  they  last 
they  are  Paradise  regained. 

The  moments  went  by  like  the  spray  of 
fountains  that  have  been  set  to  play  in 
the  sun;  and  even  when  we  rose  to  go 
Tom  touched  my  arm  and  pointed  to  the 
tiny  jewelled  bay  scintillating  with  re- 
flected suns,  to  the  white  pillars  of  a  tem- 
ple half  hidden  in  a  grove  on  the  further 
shore,  and  told  me  some  story  of  a  man 
cast  on  an  Italian  island,  who  loved  some 
girl  there  and  rowed  out  on  the  bay  in 
278 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  glittering  nights  with  her,  with  the 
''desire  of  his  heart."  With  the  desire  of 
his  heart!  The  nasturtiums  waved  their 
flame  to  our  feet  as  we  passed  up  the  steps 
reluctantly,  slowly,  or  pausing  now  and 
then  to  look  back,  or  now  to  draw  closer 
together  when  the  spray  of  other  flowers 
would  sway  over  the  balustrade  and  tempt 
us  to  lean  to  their  fragrance. 

And  that  night  I  told  him  I  could  never 
marry  him.  After  the  long,  silent  drive 
back  I  asked  to  be  alone  for  a  while,  and 
then  on  the  Terrace,  when  the  place  was 
all  silent  and  closed,  I  came  out  as  I  had 
done  the  first  time,  and  I  asked  him  to 
go  away,  to  leave  me — that  I  wanted  my 
life  to  myself. 

Friday. — He  left  this  morning.  A  note 
was  brought  to  me  to  say  he  had  gone  to 
Arcachon,  that  he  would  come  back  when- 
ever I  wanted  him. 

279 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

The  South  seemed  rather  empty  to  me 
this  morning;  and  strangely,  for  the  first 
time  in  weeks  the  sky  is  grey,  the  water 
like  heaving  lead,  and  a  cold,  ugly  rain 
comes  down  now  and  then.  I  have  had  a 
fire  built  in  my  room;  it  warms  my  heart; 
it  is  one  of  the  elements  anyway,  and  I 
must  get  back  to  living  with  the  elements, 
not  to  these  grasping,  disturbing  human 
ties. 

It  is  blanker  than  I  thought,  and  I  am 
glad  to  be  alone.  But  suddenly  life  has 
come  to  a  standstill.  Even  when  the  sun 
shines  it  presses  on  my  eyes  and  pains 
them.  There  is  an  oppression  over  every- 
thing, and  the  blood  of  the  Southern 
spring  seems  thick. 


280 


CAIRO 

Shepheard's  Hotel,  May. — I  wanted  to 
be  so  dominated  by  the  sun  that  there 
would  be  no  flame  in  me  that  it  would 
not  consume,  and  Egypt  had  meant  to 
me  the  very  centre  of  the  South. 

There  is  no  reality  of  glamour  in  the 
world;  we  must  give  from  ourselves  all 
the  glamour  existence  possesses. 

From  underneath  my  window  comes  the 
penetrating  scream  of  the  pelican,  the 
fountains  are  standing  half  waterless  in 
the  blazing  pallid  garden,  the  air  is  im- 
prisoned in  light,  a  desert  made  trans- 
parent, and  enclosing  the  world  in  dry, 
sun  glare.  The  moisture  of  life  is  out  of 
realisation. 

The  darkened  room  is  wired  in  bjr  heat; 
281 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  monkey  chained  to  the  balcony  under- 
neath is  sliming  its  hands  in  a  half-decayed 
banana,  and  answers  the  scream  of  the 
pelican  now  and  then  with  a  revolting 
chuckling  cry;  a  half-naked  Arab  girl  is 
hanging  out  red  and  blue  shirts  on  a  roof 
beside  the  garden.  And  this  is  Egypt! 

The  sun-gilted,  lotus-scented  Egypt  of 
dreams,  the  Egypt  of  gold  barges  moving 
through  rivers  of  iris.  Where  flamingoes 
screamed  at  the  sun  from  banks  of  osier, 
where  slaves  moved  weighted  by  silver 
anklets  and  chains  of  agate  and  chryso- 
prase. 

A  fat  Arab  is  trailing  a  coil  of  hose  past 
the  brittle  flowers  with  the  two  stumpy 
dachshunds  snapping  at  his  wet  blue 
smock.  His  ugly  bare  feet  and  scored 
ankles  insult  even  the  dusty  grass,  the 
spurt  of  water  frightens  the  crows  from 
the  trees,  and  they  flap  their  wide  wings 
282 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

squawking  to  the  roof  of  the  turtle  house. 
And  they  are  not  even  vultures. 

Perhaps  up  the  Nile — with  the  great 
temples,  the  immortal  silence — but  it 
would  be  too  hot  and  it  would  cost  a 
hundred  pounds,  and  I  haven't  a  hundred 
pounds. 

It  is  merely  ordinary  bathos.  Two  hot 
tired  tears  ooze  out  of  my  eyes,  and  I 
catch  them  on  the  tips  of  my  fingers  and 
look  at  them. 

It  is  the  noise  I  cannot  endure,  the  un- 
ending, meaningless,  insane  noise.  When 
the  Arab  boys  begin  that  monotonous 
staccato  clang  of  talk  I  wait  breathless 
for  the  gods  to  strike  them  dead,  and 
then  always  at  three,  in  the  very  heart  of 
the  heat,  an  Arab  wedding  or  funeral 
passes  the  hotel.  I  am  stretched  out  on 
the  huge  bed  panting  as  the  heat  empties 
the  consciousness  out  of  my  veins,  when 
the  low  boom  of  the  sound  begins  in  the 
283 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

distance  and  slowly,  infinitely,  comes 
nearer  and  nearer.  It  takes  so  long,  it 
swells  from  a  thing  I  understand  to  mad 
hordes  coming  to  massacre  and  torture,  to 
search  the  place.  No  matter  where  I 
might  hide  I  would  be  found — and  I  am 
undressed — I  haven't  even  time  to  put  on 
clothes.  I  cower  in  the  pillows  with  the 
veins  in  my  forehead  binding  my  head  by 
steel. 

Sound — Music,  did  I  leave  you?    You 
are  having  your  revenge. 

For  the  first  few  wonder-struck  mo- 
ments it  gave  pleasure,  the  first  journey 
on  the  desert,  the  sleek  yellow  earth  beast 
warming  its  flanks  under  unceasing  suns, 
parasited  by  the  reptile-headed  camels, 
stirring  only  to  the  blankness  of  the  native 
voices;  but  giving  the  mockery  of  beauty 
to  the  creatures  it  possesses,  the  monsters 
that  move  near  in  their  human  mask. 
284 


THE    TREE    OF,    KNOWLEDGE 

Veiled  women  pattering  on  donkeys  from 
an  empty  distance  to  the  empty  horizon, 
the  big-muscled  men  in  loose  robes. 

I  saw  the  first  one  of  these  blue- 
smocked  brown  things  standing  rigid  on 
the  brow  of  a  sphinx  of  sand.  It  was  a 
phrase.  A  brown  organ  point  of  the  'cellos 
with  the  shrill  piping  of  the  glare  of  the 
piccolos. 

But  the  sense  of  these  brown  things, 
these  caricatures  of  humanity,  these  husks 
of  ourselves,  left  as  life  moved  to  the 
North,  nauseate  me  like  open  graves  in 
a  deserted  cemetery.  When  I  watch  them 
for  a  while  from  the  Terrace,  or  after  I 
have  forced  myself  to  drive  through  the 
bazaars,  I  come  away  with  the  black  lines 
under  my  eyes  half-way  down  my  cheeks, 
with  every  nerve  in  my  body  trembling 
with  disgust. 

The  sound  and  the  mutilations  and 
their  vile  smile,  the  slime  of  the  native 
285 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

streets,  the  hideous  cries,  the  vagrant  eyes, 
the  scored  cheeks,  the  flies  matted  on  the 
children's  faces,  the  unfathomable  beastli- 
ness of  the  smell  of  alien  bodies,  the  rinds 
of  melon  lying  in  the  streets,  the  wanton 
bray  of  the  donkeys,  the  open  shirts  of 
the  men  showing  their  black  glistening 
chests,  the  money  clinking  in  cups,  the 
mutilated  nostrils  and  eyes,  the  dust  that 
penetrates  and  clings  and  enfolds  with 
impalpable  horror.  It  is  nameless  hell— 
a  hell  not  for  any  crime  or  cruelty,  but 
just  a  hell  because  existence  has  set  them 
in  one  space  and  let  them  rot  to  death; 
they  are  caught  in  a  coil  of  creation  from 
which  there  is  no  escape.  They  seem  held 
in  a  trap  of  the  sun. 

June  1st. — The  hard  greyness  of  some 

future  veil  seems  to  settle  down  on  me  with 

the  sun  in  these  heat-broken  days.     The 

sky  slowly  closes  in  on  you  in  au  arc  of 

280 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

burning  metal,  and  tissue  by  tissue,  vein 
by  vein,  draws  out  your  senses.  In  the 
dust  world  of  sun-pricks  there  is  no  feel- 
ing left. 

My  nerve  seems  to  be  slipping  away 
from  me,  as  though  it  were  another  per- 
son, leaving  me  helpless  in  front  of  this 
heat  and  clamour.  When  I  close  my  eyes 
I  only  see  the  flame  of  the  red  fez:  it 
spreads  over  Cairo  like  masses  of  putres- 
cent  poppies  springing  from  a  world  of 
slime. 

And  even  in  my  room  where  it  is  just 
myself,  where  just  my  own  mood  can 
dominate,  the  smell  from  the  orange  blos- 
soms and  the  pink  roses  the  Turk  sends 
me,  sicken  my  blood.  Just  myself,  and 
these  are  the  things  I  bring  myself.  The 
mood  of  Egypt  that  I  was  curious  of,  the 
Orient  of  the  Mind. 

1.30  A.  M. — I  turned  on  each  globe  of 
287 


THE    TREE    OE    KNOWLEDGE 

the  electric  light  and  studied  myself  in  the 
glass  when  I  came  in.  I  wanted  to  be 
quite  sure  it  was  myself.  I  wanted  to 
see  the  myself,  to  be  with  her,  to  be  sure 
of  her.  No,  she  wasn't  changed.  I  was 
white ;  even  my  lips  looked  tight  and  grey, 
but  there  was  no  change  in  my  eyes.  I 
looked  for  that.  Myself,  I  don't  want 
your  eyes  to  change.  I  shall  take  care  of 
you — I  shall  keep  you  from  the  harm 
touching  you. 

I  thought  I  had  seen  the  depths,  but 
this  was  beyond  words  abomination. 

The  reek  of  the  incense,  the  naked  con- 
torted women.  And  Life  makes  lust  this. 
This  is  the  dance  they  all  so  want  to  see; 
these  things — women  like  that — what  it  all 
in  the  end  means. 

Have  I  been  blind,  taking  rouge  when 
E  thought  it  was  fire  ?    Is  this  then  the  kind 
of  thing  men  think  passion,  sensuality, 
suggestiveness,  women    ... 
288 


THE    TEEE    OF.    KNOWLEDGE 

I  do  not  even  dare  to  throw  that  crea- 
ture's flowers  from  the  window.  I  mustn't 
let  myself  go,  I  mustn't  let  myself  go. 

And  I  have  been  so  curious,  and  I 
thought  myself  so  brave.  I  thought  it 
was  human  too,  and  I  would  know  my  hu- 
manity. I  don't  want  to  be  human  any 
more.  I  am  tired,  so  tired. 

The  way  for  the  money  is  beyond  mjr 
strength. 


289 


SCHEVENINGEN 

'July. — The  smooth  yellow  sands,  the 
smooth  sun-dyed  sea,  the  curving  waves 
shelled  with  white  foam,  the  iced  air,  the 
continuous,  smooth,  tenuous  murmur  of 
the  sea,  the  sea  I  love,  that  soothes  me,  like 
a  hand  on  my  forehead  smoothing  down 
the  swollen  veins.  I  lean  back  in  the  hood- 
ed chairs,  and  let  my  soul  slip  out  of  me 
out  to  the  meshed  light,  where  the  sea 
merges  into  the  horizon,  that  melts  over 
the  vast  cool  depths;  the  scented  silence 
after  the  rasp  of  life,  the  immensity  after 
the  cramping  pettiness  of  pain. 

I  came  back  to  the  music,  but  the  Kur- 
saal  is  bare,  gaunt,  and  I  am  weak  for  the 
luxury^  that  rests  the  eyes,  if  I  listen  to  the 
290 


,THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

cry  that  tears  the  soul.  Music  needs  foun- 
tains, palms,  down  to  rest  on ;  to  put  your- 
self on  an  empyrean  cloud  and  yearn  to 
the  passion  of  the  gods  while  your  spine 
is  being  rasped  by  a  wooden  chair  and 
your  temper  deranged  by  a  person  near 
you  gulping  beer,  is  too  antithetical  to 
be  nice.  I  am  past  going  ostrich-like  to 
Art  and  swallowing  all  sorts  of  visual 
scrap-iron  for  the  sake  of  a  grain  of  sound. 

I  detest  hard  seats,  I  loathe  people  who 
drink  beer,  I  almost  cry  with  the  inability 
to  get  the  rest  I  want  with  the  death-song 
of  the  Brahms  symphony  booming  in  my 
ears;  and  so  I  go  out  on  the  windy  Ter- 
race, where  an  untidy,  grease-marked  at- 
tendant brings  me  iced  coffee  in  a  thick 
ugly  glass. 

It  is  absurd ;  there  is  no  use  living  un- 
less you  can  barricade  yourself  with  every 
conceivable  beauty.  Life  itself  trembles 
on  the  precipice  of  physical  pain,  human- 
291 


ity  undisguised  is  disgusting,  and  the  facts 
of  existence  undraped  by  wealth  are  in- 
tolerable beastliness. 

Greasy  attendants,  thick  dishes,  incom- 
petent housemaids,  a  zinc  bath-tub;  why 
in  the  name  of  immortal  heaven  should  one 
endure  these  things?  And  Art  only  mad- 
dens you  by  the  hints  of  an  ecstasy  that 
needs  all  the  velvet  and  orchids  and  jewels 
of  riches  to  frame.  Could  you  imagine 
Tristan  and  Isolde  singing  the  love  duet 
on  a  horsehair  sofa?  Tristan  and  Isolde 
got  more  sheer  pleasure  out  of  dying  for 
love  than  all  the  indigent  husbands  and 
wives  of  the  world  ever  achieved  out  of 
living  to  have  children.  Oh,  I  grant  they 
may  love,  or  think  what  they  call  love, 
have  their  share  in  the  flashes  of  illusion; 
but  as  illusion  is  the  only  thing  worth 
while  in  life,  the  only  life  liveable  is  the 
one  that  makes  it  possible  to  be  always 

illusioned. 

292 


Monday. — Those  weeks  in  Cairo  proved 
that  however  much  we  may  want  a  thing, 
however  we  may  protest  that  we  are  will- 
ing to  pay  the  price,  something  in  us,  not 
of  ourselves,  controls  us  otherwise.  I  held 
the  price  for  it  all  in  my  hand,  and  let  it 
drift  through  my  fingers.  I  had  no  power 
to  make  myself  yield. 

And  I  can't,  I  won't,  let  Oscar  think  he 
can  control  my  life,  come  when  he  wishes, 
be  everything  to  me.  I  can't  go  back  to 
him.  Must  it  always  be  coming  away? 
Am  I  to  have  no  peace,  no  rest,  no  con- 
tent? But  to  be  willing  to  give  myself, 
I  must  be  free  to  give  or  refuse.  Oh,  if 
I  could  only  rob  a  bank  with  the  blissful 
certainty  that  I  would  not  be  found  out! 
It  takes  training  and  nerve  and  brain  even 
to  be  a  criminal,  and  I  haven't  the  train- 
ing for  anything.  I  am  only  so  much  flesh 
and  blood  that  inexorably  in  a  few  years 
293 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

will  be  so  much  carrion  as  far  as  the  use 
of  it,  the  beauty  of  it,  is  concerned. 

Carrion — and  then — oh,  yes,  I  shall  die 
before  then;  I  have  no  intention  of  being 
kicked  out  of  living  before  I  kick  away 
life.  Life!  I  wonder  how  many  people 
would  give  millions  if  they  could  buy  the 
youth,  the  life,  the  years,  I  have  naturally 
before  me,  that  I  am  so  tired  of.  I  loathe 
life,  and  they  want  it. 

August. — I  have  done  with  life;  it  is 
around  my  throat  and  choking  me,  it  is  too 
heavy  to  carry,  I  have  lost  the  rebound. 
It  was  myself  against  the  world,  and  what 
had  I  to  fight  with  to  get  the  things  I 
wanted,  and  all  the  time  clogged  by  the 
hideous  handicap  of  restraining  inherited 
tendencies?  Even  now  I  am  ruining  my 
life  by  some  obscure  pride  that  will  not 
let  me  yield  to  Oscar,  wheedle  him,  cajole 
him  into  letting  me  have  what  I  want  and 
294 


freedom  too.  A  cleverer  woman  than  I 
could  do  it,  but  I  can't;  it  would  not  be 
the  myself  who  had  done  the  other  things 
I  have  done  if  I  could.  We  are  the  slaves 
of  the  past  generations  that  made  us,  and 
our  actions  are  as  circumscribed  as  though 
bounded  by  an  iron  wall.  We  are  as  un- 
able to  do  some  things  as  to  live  under 
water  or  to  fly.  It  is  all  the  inexorable 
sum  total  which,  from  the  addition  of  each 
circumstance,  brings  the  inevitable  result. 
Some  half-forgotten  words  mark  it — a 
"stiff-necked  generation."  That  is  it :  that 
describes  me. 

And  yet  the  sum  total  I  hate  so  much, 
that  is  choking  me  now,  has  brought  me 
some  gorgeous  hours  and  great  love.  But 
I  was  unmoved ;  for  me,  they  did  not  ex- 
ist as  men,  they  did  not  make  me  feel 
real.  But  what  is  it  that  makes  people  real 
to  each  other,  that  lifts  them  from  seem- 
ing automata  of  flesh  and  blood  to  a  vi- 
295 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

tality  that  makes  the  very  air  you  breathe 
their  essence;  and,  if  you  can't  be  with 
them,  that  makes  it  seem  as  if  the  very 
oxygen  had  been  shut  out  of  the  universe  ? 

September. — I  am  still  young  and  to  be 
deceived.  I  shall  shut  life  out  while  it  still 
offers  things  to  me  and  take  a  gift  to 
Death  of  myself.  That  foolish  Elaine  and 
her  barge  and  the  voyage  to  Camelot !  My 
lovers  are  not  dead,  but  it  is  yet  to  death 
alone  that  I  want  to  voyage. 

It  draws  me,  makes  me  yearn  for  it 
more  than  anything  in  life  ever  did. 

I  am  curious,  too,  to  know  the  secret 
of  death.  Any  idea  that  humanity  has 
of  a  future  life  is  merely  ridiculous,  and 
extinction  is  so  appalling!  As  for  that, 
no  possible  explanation  of  the  making  of 
the  world  gives  an  adequate  reason  for 
the  unthinkable  millions  of  years  of  suffer- 
ing. Surety  extinction,  non-creation, 
296 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

would  have  been  better  than  that.  No 
compensation  seems  possible  for  all  this 
useless  pain,  from  the  very  horses  shiver- 
ing in  the  snow  in  a  winter  street,  the  birds 
snared  by  a  snake,  a  child  suffocating  and 
dying  in  agonies — what  limitless  repeti- 
tions of  agony!  How  much  better  if 
empty  space,  which  we  cannot  conceive, 
had  been  left!  Empty  space,  uncreated 
space.  What  first  dust  of  nebulas  drifted 
together  to  form  all  this?  What  wretched 
minds  we  have  when  we  cannot  think  away 
matter  or  mind  and  imagine  a  state  of  un- 
creation — nothing — when  there  never  was 
anything — not  even  a  void! 

But  if  this  is  creation,  if  what  we  know 
and  see  is  the  culmination  of  unutterable 
power,  it  is  immeasurably  inadequate. 
When  there  was  the  power  to  form  worlds, 
they,  after  all,  were  very  poor  ones.  It 
seems  such  a  colossal  possibility  with  such 
mean  results. 

297 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

Even  gravitation  and  the  swing  of  the 
stars,  and  the  fire  of  unnumbered  suns,  is 
really  very  trifling  when  we  consider  that 
that  is  all:  a  few  incandescent  balls  hung 
up  in  unmeasured  space.  Why  clutter  up 
the  space  at  all  ?  There  is  nothing  gained. 

If  one  could  only  find  some  way  of  ex- 
ploding the  world,  of  so  deranging  every 
magnetic  influence  of  our  solar  system 
that  the  fragments  would  hurtle  through 
space,  chasing  system  after  system  into  a 
series  of  celestial  explosions,  till  entire 
creation  should  bang  off  like  a  line  of  fire- 
works and  the  whole  box  of  tricks  be  de- 
stroyed! 


298 


LONDON 

October. — It  is  an  unwise  thing  to  wait 
for  Fate.  It  is  a  reckless  thing  to  stake 
life  against  the  opening  of  the  heavens  and 
the  interposition  of  chance. 

Why  I  came  back  to  London  I  do  not 
know.  Why  I  drifted  through  those 
months  in  Holland,  there  in  the  straight- 
ness  of  its  canals,  weary  of  the  little  red 
houses,  buffeted  by  the  dark  other  world. 

And  now  I  have  come  back,  come  back 
like  a  dog  to  die.  London  is  hideously 
empty ;  one  day  raucous  sunlight,  the  next 
gibbering  damp  and  cold.  I  walk  every 
day  in  St.  James's  Park,  walk  as  far  as 
Carlton  House  Terrace,  and  let  myself 
be  overpowered  by  the  outside  grandeur 
pf  houses  I  know. 

299 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

What  did  I  expect?  what  miracle,  what 
dropping  of  wealth  from  the  clouds?  My 
life  has  been  full  of  such  queer  chance  that 
I  never  dreamed  that  in  my  extremity 
Fate  would  fail  me.  Evidently  the  game 
is  played;  well,  I  shall  do  my  part  since 
there  is  nothing  left  but  to  die:  I  can  at 
least  die  gaily.  But  after  all  life  holds 
one  with  vicious  strength,  with  unmatched 
fascination.  I  am  young,  I  am  strong, 
my  blood  beats  joyously  to  the  wind,  the 
pleasure  of  flowers  can  even  on  a  day  like 
this  flush  my  cheeks  with  the  abandon  of 
their  perfume. 

I  lay  down  life  full,  complete,  vital;  it 
is  no  played-out  fabric  that  I  am  tearing 
the  soul  out  of;  and  I  am  sorry  for  my 
body  more  than  anything  else.  I  look  on 
it  almost  as  something  apart  from  me;  it 
can't  share  in  the  future  forgetfulness  of 
life,  it  must  be  destroyed  out  of  beauty— 
the  smooth  white  flesh,  the  leap  of  blood, 
300 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

the  soft  hair  and  questioning  eyes.  It  is 
such  a  soft,  tender  piece  of  flesh;  I  hate 
to  think  of  it  dead  and  perhaps  carelessly 
touched.  I  am  so  sorry,  so  grieved  that 
I  have  to  treat  it  like  this,  and  take  away 
from  it  the  mind's  protection.  But  it  is 
the  "myself"  I  enjoy  killing,  the  myself 
that  stood  back  at  critical  moments,  that 
chained  my  will,  that  forbade  my  complete 
freedom.  It  is  the  mind  that  gets  eternity 
if  there  is  any,  but  this  inherited  mass  of 
murderous  contradictions  will  be  for  ever 
dead.  It  is  almost  useless  for  an  adven- 
turous mind  to  drag  some  characters 
through  existence ;  they  will  fail  you  at  the 
last  moment  and  say  "no"  when  every 
dictate  and  planned  necessity  of  your  life 
demands  an  instant  "yes." 

They  talk  of  the  last  moments  of  drown- 
ing men,  when  they  review  their  whole  life, 
but  I  have  a  multitude  of  last  moments. 
I  have  set  the  day,  the  hour,  and  every; 
301 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

minute  brings  it  inexorably  nearer.  I  walk 
in  the  park  and  stir  the  dead  leaves  with 
my  parasol,  and  to-day  I  went  into  a  tea- 
room to  hear  the  tinkle  of  voices  and  cups 
and  the  low  clamour  of  the  violins.  Walk- 
ing back  across  the  park  the  sky  was  pale- 
ly blue  and  touched  here  and  there  with 
stars,  and  against  the  luminous  sky  showed 
the  tracery  of  the  bare  boughs.  The  sound 
of  the  city  was  subdued,  the  sheep  on  the 
grass  were  huddled  and  asleep — and  in 
three  days  I  shall  be  dead.  I  almost 
laughed  at  the  thought,  and  gathered  my 
skirts  around  me  a  little  more  closely  so 
that  I  could  hear  the  rustle  of  my  silk 
petticoats.  I  opened  the  fur  at  my  throat, 
I  watched  the  pressure  of  my  feet  as  I 
walked  swiftly  over  the  hard  paths.  I 
felt  the  litheness,  the  vigour  of  my  body 
as  I  walked.  I  am  young  to  die. 

Sometimes  I  lean  over  to  the  fire  and 
wonder  just  what  has  brought  me  to  these 
302 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

sad  and  tragic  days.  Yes,  Rossetti,  "what 
most  or  least  impelled  my  onward  way?" 
Ambition  is  a  curse  if  you  are  not  armour- 
proof  against  everything  else,  unless  you 
are  willing  to  sacrifice  yourself  to  your 
ambition.  And  I  have  not  been.  I  want- 
ed the  riches  and  the  beauty  of  every  mo- 
ment, too.  It  never  pays  to  give  yourself 
where  you  want  to  go.  A  woman  who  is 
ambitious  must  get  what  she  wants 
through  disgust,  not  pleasure. 

But  am  I  so  unhappy?  Have  I  not 
lived  ?  I  have  been  loved,  I  have  seen  and 
heard  many  beautiful  things,  and — I,  too, 
have  loved  in  my  own  way. 

I  have  no  regrets.  I  have  never  harmed 
anyone — anything  I  have  suffered  has 
been  my  own  folly  or  my  own  accepted 
risk. 

But  I  protest  against  death  because  I 
see  and  enjoy  and  love  the  good  of  life 
so  utterly,  the  delight  of  things  that  oth- 
303 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

ers  accept  as  usual  or  pass  by  unnoticed; 
the  rapture  of  perfume,  of  dawns  and 
twilights,  the  abandonment  of  music,  the 
transformation  of  Art,  the  mere  delight 
of  being  human  and  the  gifts  of  the 
trained  senses.  I  can  feel  the  exquisite- 
ness  like  that  of  a  jewel  or  flower  that  is 
transfixed  in  a  page  of  Flaubert  or 
Gautier,  or  lean  from  a  carriage  touched 
to  grief  by  the  tenderness  of  the  golden 
melting  lights  in  the  haze  of  a  London 
evening  before  darkness  has  quite  fallen. 
And  people  live  on  in  their  dull  health 
who  have  never  read  words  as  a  sensuous 
act,  who  would  call  the  transmission  of  a 
gas  jet  through  fog  into  the  tremor  of 
excited  nerves  a  result  of  bad  digestion  or 
of  lunacy.  And  they  who  never  see  Da 
Vinci's  "Madonna  of  the  Rocks,"  who 
have  never  heard  the  intoxication  of  a  sym- 
phony, will  live  on,  dine  on,  continue  to 
drink  their  champagne — and  I  must  die. 
304 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

I  have  just  been  reading  Flaubert's 
Saldmmbo,  and  it  makes  an  explanation 
for  me,  it  is  a  reason  why  I  am  counting 
now  the  hours  till  I  shall  be  dead.  These 
are  the  words  and  phrases  and  moods  that 
created  the  world  I  fought  to  enter,  to 
possess.  The  words  tinkle  over  the  pages 
and  make  a  chain  that  is  dragging  me 
down  to  death. 

Pomegranates,  coral  dust,  vermilion,  fili- 
gree, porphyry,  a  network  of  blue  pearls, 
nard,  flamingoes,  ambergris,  amber; 
exquisite  words  luminous  with  the  radi- 
ance of  unknown  nights  and  days  and  un- 
seen suns  and  undiscovered  oceans.  I 
wanted  my  world  of  ivory  and  green  dia- 
monds, of  lotus-covered  rivers,  of  alabas- 
ter terraces  bordered  by  the  pink  blossoms 
of  dwarf  oleanders. 

They  have  all  seduced  me,  these 
sedulous  phrases  of  unknown  vistas,  shad- 
ows of  passion  and  visions  of  glamour. 
305 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

it 

Gautier,  Flaubert,  we  cannot  reproduce 
their  world  by  anything  but  money.  It  is 
a  physical  world  illuminated  by  the  sun 
of  the  senses. 

The  soul  was  invented  to  satisfy  the 
jealousy  of  those  who  haven't  any  money. 

I  have  fathomed  to-day  the  tremendous 
negative  delight  of  pride.  I  had  been  out ; 
the  swirl  of  the  autumn  keen  air  streaked 
with  sword-like  sun,  the  smell  of  the  leaves 
rustling  through  the  air,  the  ocean  of  cool 
sky  and  sun-smitten  clouds,  the  electricity 
of  the  riotous  sense  of  cold,  throbbed  my 
blood  to  responsive  flame.  I  couldn't  die. 
I  was  so  young,  I  enjoyed  it  so,  and  the 
world  was  so  beautiful ;  anything,  anyway, 
only  let  me  live.  So  I  wrote  to  Oscar.  I 
knew  of  his  self-satisfied  smile,  his  com- 
placent consciousness  that  he  was  my  only 
resource,  his  smug  feeling  that  I  turned  in 
my  extremity  to  him.  I  braved  all  that 
306 


THE    TREE    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

and  wrote  that  I  would  stay,  that  I  was 
willing  to  stay  in  London  as  he  wished. 
Then  when  the  letter  was  written  I  read 
it  over  with  the  blood  slowly  turning  to 
fire  in  my  cheeks.  I  stoop  to  beg  to  him ! 
I  ask  my  life  of  anyone!  I  yield  an  iota 
of  what  I  wished  to  do!  I  looked  out  of 
the  window.  The  wind  was  still  whirling 
the  leaves,  but  the  light  was  turning  grey ; 
the  exquisite  chill  was  still  there,  but  it 
was  like  the  steel  of  a  sword,  not  the  iced 
fillip  of  wine.  I  went  over  to  the  glass: 
my  eyes  and  face  were  flaming  with 
shame;  and  I  turned  back  and  tore  the 
letter  into  shreds.  My  pride  was  dearer 
than  life;  the  pleasure  of  giving  it  my 
life  intoxicated  me.  I  am  stronger  after 
all  than  the  disaster  of  being  human. 


THE  END 


BY  HUBERT   WALES 

THE  YOKE 

is  a  story  of  the  deli' 

cate  problem  which 
confronts  the  sexes:  the  moral  attitude  and 
welfare  of  men  and  women.  The  author 
has  chosen  an  infrequently  considered  phase, 
and  has  dared  to  treat  it  graphically. 

The  characters  are  strong,  attractive,  and 
always  interesting.  The  problem  of  which 
the  story  treats  is  vividly  and  fearlessly  laid 
before  the  reader.  A  more  subtle  insinuation 
of  the  question  may  have  been  possible,  but 
the  author  has  felt  that  there  can  be  no  indeli- 
cacy in  a  straightforward  serious  discussion 
of  an  existing  evil  condition. 

The  sex  problem  is  multiform  and  varies 
in  individuals  as  they  differ  in  temperament 
and  environment.  Perhaps  to  the  great  ma- 
jority it  does  not  present  itself  as  a  personal 
problem,  but  even  such  fortunate  persons 
cannot  ignore  its  existence  or  be  injured  by  a 
knowledge  of  the  temptations  which  assail  the 
less  fortunate  of  humanity. 

THE   STUYVESANT   PRESS 

PUBLISHERS 
43  WEST   2yrH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 


THE   YOKE 

BY  HUBERT   WALES 


London  Daily  Chronicle. — "The  story  is  extremely 
well  written,  the  characterisation  admirable.  Mr. 
Wales  sees  some  things  that  other  men  fail  to  see, 
and  says  a  good  many  things  about  which  other  men 
maintain  a  strict  reserve." 

J*    J« 

London  Daily  Telegraph — "Some  people  may  con- 
sider the  book  'unpleasant,'  but,  however  that  may  be, 
it  is  a  fair  and  legitimate  study  of  temperaments,  the 
working  out  of  a  problem  by  no  means  rare  in  real 
life.  If  it  had  been  badly  done  it  would  certainly 
have  been  an  unpleasant  book,  but  it  is  well  done." 

^    ^ 

The  Tatler.— "What  I  said  about  'Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Villiers'  some  months  ago  I  repeat  about  'The  Yoke.' 
But  the  latter  is  more  than  a  'notable  book';  it  is 
one  of  striking  skill,  both  in  plot  and  characterisa- 
tion, and  assures  Mr.  Hubert  Wales  that  front-rank 
place  among  contemporary  novelists  for  which  he 
has  made  so  bold  a  bid.  There  is  no  inane  idealism 
about  'The  Yoke."  Its  intense  human  interest  will 
be  the  key  to  its  success." 

.*     Jit 

London  Times. — "It  is  a  strong  and  poignant  story; 
it  can  be  recommended  because  of  its  obvious  sin- 
cerity." 

J*    ,•* 

Bystander "Mr.     Hubert     Wales's     object     is 

straightforward  psychology,  and  he  gives  us  emo- 
tions in  original  combinations.  Mr.  Wales  shows 
marked  power  in  his  treatment  of  the  various  cli- 
maxes." 

.*    c* 

Aberdeen  Press. — "Mr.  Wales  is  a  clever  chef. 
What  might  have  been  an  extremely  unpleasant 
book  he  has  transformed,  by  his  extreme  lucid  naive 
style,  his  wit,  powers  of  observance,  and  his  grace- 
ful air,  into  a  remarkably  interesting  one— one  that 
leaves  no  bad  taste  in  the  mouth." 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Villiers 

A  NOVEL  BY 

Hubert  Wales 

In  this  story,  as  in  The  Yoke,  certain  phases  of  the  sex- 
problem  are  considered:  difficulties  not  infrequently  en- 
countered in  the  married  state. 

Man  is  naturally  the  aggressor  in  the  connubial  rela- 
tions. His  desires  and  passions  are  more  positive  than 
woman's.  Women  of  unusual  mental  and  physical  charms 
are  often  found  renitent  and  lacking  in  the  disposition 
whichmakes  forperfect  conjugal  happiness.  Such  women 
have  little  difficulty  in  marrying,  although  entirely  unfitted 
for  the  marriage  relation.  Mrs.  Villiers  is  a  woman  of 
this  type. 

J2mo.    Cloth*    Price  $J.50 

The  Tree  of  Knowledge 

A  DOCUMENT  BY 

A  Woman 

The  woman  who  dissects  her  soul  in  these  vibrant 
pages  is,  so  far  as  can  be  judged,  entirely  frank. 

This  is  not  her  only  ment,  for  her  delight  in  the  flexi- 
bility of  language  lends  an  exotic  charm  which,  like  the 
scent  of  orchids,  fatigues  and  delights  the  sense.  Here 
we  have  set  naked  before  us  the  nature  of  a  woman 
steeped  in  the  poisonous  juices  that  distil  from  the 
Tree  of  Knowledge. 

Seeing  that  she  has  no  standards  of  right  and  wrong, 
it  would  be  inaccurate  to  call  her  immoral.  She  is 
litterally  non-moral.  Morality  is  to  her  a  convention; 
Religion  a  frame  of  mind. 

J2mo*    Cloth,    Price  $K50 


THE    STUYVESANT    PRESS 

43  West  27th  Street,  New  York 


By  Hubert  Wales 

Cynthia 

In  the  Wilderness 


In  this  story  Mr.  Wales  has  taken  for  his  theme  another 
view  of  the  sex-problem.  As  in  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Villiers" 
he  is  sincere  in  his  earnest  effort  to  picture  a  phase  of 
life  in  double  harness  which  presents  certain  pitfalls. 

Cynthia  is  a  woman  of  exceptional  attractiveness,  men- 
tally and  physically.  In  her  married  state  she  finds  her- 
self in  the  delicate  position  of  an  intensely  human  Venus 
placed  upon  a  pedestal  of  marble  deference  by  a  husband 
of  intemperate  and  decadent  proclivities. 

There  is  a  broad  realism  pervading  the  story ;  it  is  strong 
and  poignant,  yet  it  is  straightforward  pyschology  pre- 
sented with  an  undeniable  skilL  The  vivid  human  interest 
of  the  book  will  be  the  key-note  of  its  success. 

J2mo.    Cloth.    Price  $1.50 


THE    STUYVESANT    PRESS 

PUBLISHERS=r- 

43  West  27th  Street,  New  York 


A     000129508     8 


